Love In Such Times
by GreTheresa
Summary: James's dad and practically more than half the Ministry is struggling to keep the wizarding world a sane place. With aurors falling dead almost everyday, the world is being engulfed by the dark forces. James is losing sleep, worrying over his dad, while also being preoccupied with trying to win Lily over. Will Lily and James be able to overcome these times and fall in love?
1. A Long Night

CHAPTER ONE

James tossed and turned in his bed, his mind restless, wrapped around the thought of whether his dad might return from the operation or a raid or whatever it was, tonight. His mother had told him and Sirius to go to bed but sleep and peace just wouldn't find him. He knew Sirius's calm form lying down still, didn't mean he was asleep. His eyes were fixed on the ceiling, his forearms resting just above his eyes. He forced his way into James's room just in case James decides to do something stupid. Sirius wondered if this was how Remus always felt around James and Sirius all the time.

Sirius had moved in with the Potters in his fourth year after he ran away from his home. The Potters had been extremely kind to him, and had taken him in without asking any questions on that stormy night when he had come seeking refuge. He'd stayed with the Potters since then. Sirius lifted his hand from his forehead and propped himself up to catch a glimpse at James. _Restless as usual_, he thought. This past year, with the growing threat of the dark forces of Voldemort, James's dad has been preoccupied with late night raids, risky operations and the likes. Back at school James would constantly write to his mother to figure out if his dad would be going on some operation. But his mother never leaked any information on the matter lest he'd worry. It made James restless. So instead waiting around for his mother's reply James started writing to his house-elf Ella. Ella, though unwillingly, had to convey whatever information she could gather on his dad. This information made him even more restless. Now that he was home, practically living the events of those letters with his father coming home with bloody scratches all over his face and neck, bloodshot eyes, the idea of never seeing his dad again if he gets taken captive or worse dead, James was to say the least, not in the best of head space. Given that James's father was the head of his department and his job profile primarily included signing out orders for conducting raids, him having to conduct those raids in person gave away the gravity of the situation. The Ministry was falling short on man power and it was painfully evident. The Research Department that looked into potential threats and tip offs were working round the clock as the complaints of unlawful activities and the echoes of strange screams poured in the complaint boxes. The clerical staff as well as the officer grade staff and the field work staff were falling short by miles to finish up the workload. Aurors were falling dead almost as if everyday. James and Sirius themselves had attended more than fourteen funerals in the past one month of their summer vacations. Yet the Ministry was intent upon portraying as if everything was under its control and Voldemort was nothing but a small threat upon whom they were closing in on. The truth on the other hand was that Voldemort was a needle in a stack of hay. Sirius could see that James during these funerals could hardly string two words together, practically drowning in the thoughts that the given funeral could have easily been his dad's.

Sirius propped up and threw a sock at James. James clearly caught off guard jumped to his senses.

"I forgot you were here." James remarked, dryly.

"You mean you forgot you had a hot sexy babysitter for the night sleeping in your very room?" Sirius quipped, hoping to lighten the mood.

"I'm not exactly in humorous mood as you may have well noted Sirius."

"I did. Which is why I think we need to .. you know .. talk about .." Sirius drifted off, not being entirely equipped to handle such situations.

James was amused to see Sirius's discomfort so instead of putting Sirius out of his misery James played innocent and let Sirius find the words to express the latter's thought. Sirius, after finding out what James was up to, threw a pillow at him.

"What?" demanded James, dodging the pillow.

"I'm not great at this!"

"Not even good mate." James replied.

"This is Remus's department. The mush talk and everything. Look man I've been around you all this time. There's no point telling me you're okay, because I know you're not. This whole Voldemort business is taking a toll on your dad, but it's taking a huge toll on you too. Euphemia, as it is, has so much on her mind and on her plate with your dad being this busy, and if you act like the way you've been doing, she'll go nuts." Sirius finished.

"Hey, look at that, you _are_ pretty good at this. Maybe Remus could use a Vice President for his department." James replied dryly.

Sirius scowled at James and then rolled his eyes.

"It's just," continued James, "that we have _yet_ another funeral to be at in less than a week. Arnold Longbottom's son is our senior and will probably be our Head Boy this year. Until now every other funeral, while being beyond depressing, felt a little less personal, but Frank's dad's funeral? I'm petrified to even think of it let alone attend it. And with dad running off to work and these raids, unannounced at such ungodly hours, I'm no sure if I can pull it together." confessed James.

Sirius took all of this in, trying to figure out what to say or do. He wasn't gifted with words of comfort. It was one the thing that made him envious of Remus.

"Not even thoughts of your dear Evans can cheer you up?" asked Sirius, working with the only mechanism he had to tackle such situations. Humour.

James scowled at his best mate for bringing up Lily. Lily had long been out of James's mind at least for the past couple of months. He remembered how his last encounter with Lily had gone. Severus was hanging off of his ankle, Lily trying to convince or rather threaten James with her wand, he smiled remembering her fiery eyes, to put Snape down, Snape calling her a Mudblood and Lily calling James an insufferable git and how he made her sick. That was the last he was in the immediate proximity of her. Soon they left for the summer and James caught the glimpse of Lily at King's Cross, reunited with her family. He wondered what she must be doing right now. Was she aware of how bad the situation was? Sure she reads The Daily Prophet but, with the amount of control and information management that the Ministry was exercising to keep the public in the dark about the recent events made James wonder if Lily was actually buying that crap. _Nah, she's smart_, he thought. He also wondered if she knew about Frank's dad's death. Frank and Lily were quite good friends. James closed his eyes and remembered the last Hogsmede weekend, Lily was on a date with some Ravenclaw bloke and she looked breathtaking. She'd worn a green dress with her hair in a ponytail (of which James highly disapproved of). James had made all the three of his friends spy on her in their animal forms, except Remus. Padfoot, which was Sirius's nickname, would turn in a shabby black dog which was his animagus and would start barking on the guy if he tried holding Lily's hand. Peter would turn in his rat form and jump up on the guy if he tried kissing Lily in The Three Broomsticks. Remus on the other hand refused to participate but given that he was on good terms with Lily, he was forced to use his goodwill to ask her to help him with a first year who had somehow found his way to Hogsmede but was refusing to go back to the castle. James had sneaked that boy out of the castle through one of the secret pathways just to create an absolute mess of Lily's date because that bloke whoever he was had a reputation of being a jerk (in James's mind that is). James didn't regret ruining Lily's date even after she looked positively dejected all throughout the day. James still doesn't regret it.

"Helloo, earth to James," called Sirius, "wow, so I guess Evans is still pretty much on the top of the list of things that can distract you from this grave situation."

"Shut up Padfoot."

"Did you just say Padfoot? Evans can not only distract you but can also lift your mood? What am I doing here then? Trying to make you feel better? Something Evans can do just by existing? Wow, I'm having performance anxiety now-"

James sent a flying pillow that hit Sirius square in the face.

"Mind your own business." said James.

"And let you get back to the thoughts of your dear Evans?"

"Leave it alone, Pads."

"I can't believe this. It's Pads now," remarked Sirius, rolling his eyes, "what has she given you a love potion?," before James could answer, Sirius continued, "By the way the funeral that you're petrified to attend, you'll be, I don't know what to say, excited to know that Lily will be coming too."

James heart skipped a beat and another beat because he was so taken aback when it happened in the first place. He sure was still petrified of attending that funeral, but the thought of seeing Lily again made his head feel lighter, much lighter. Sometimes his own self astonished him in the crazies ways. He had just a minute before thought that the thoughts of Lily might be able to create a moment of distraction but the very mention of the possibility of seeing Lily in less than a week had his insides battling with a hell lot of butterflies while his heart kept on fighting to survive, given that the chain reaction, of his heart skipping beats, was set off. He wasn't sure what exactly he would say or do around her. _Would she talk to me? Surely she wont create a scene at funeral by picking a fight, _thought James. But then who was he kidding. He's the one always picking at her. He was just thinking about what he'd say to Lily when his mother called for him and Sirius. His dad was home.

James and Sirius rushed downstairs where Euphemia and Fleamont were talking in hushed tones. Seeing the two of them practically flying off the stairs to meet the latter, they discontinued their conversation and turned their attention to the two boys standing before them, panting.

"Always lovely to see you boys doing cardio." chuckled Fleamont. But the lines around his tired eyes gave away his weariness.

"How are you? How'd the operation go? Is anybody hurt?" blabbered James all in one breath.

"I'm good. The operation, for a change was successful. Ernie got a deep cut under his arm but he'll be fine. We found what Arnold was looking for right before he got killed in that operation. We'll have to see what the Minister has to say on it, given that he was denying the very existence of such an object. Now anymore questions?"

James and Sirius took in all the information and then, pensively shook their heads slowly.

Fleamont chuckled at their reaction and then proceeded to ask them all to sit down.

"Other departments think that it'll be safe to relocate Frank and his mother for at least this week. Some officials from the Ministry will check their home for any possibility of security breach. We think that with the funeral and so many people attending it, it'll be safe to give the place a once over for any threats or danger. So I offered that Augusta and Frank could come over here to stay for this week. The officials would take care of the funeral arrangements. And in case there is any threat to security we can have the funeral in our neighbourhood. Does anyone have any questions? Or problems?" asked Fleamont earnestly, his drooping eyes making him look as if he hadn't slept in a week, which he probably hadn't.

Everyone shook their heads. The little family meeting dispersed quickly after Euphemia made the announcement that she would make the arrangements for the stay of the said guests. James and Sirius left for James's room after wishing his parents goodnight.

When Sirius tried following James in the latter's room James tried to fight him off but Sirius eventually succeeded in entering his room.

"Hey! I thought we'd continue our night in!" pouted Sirius.

"It was your idea anyway. But now dad's home. What do you want?"

"Nothing, just that you were thinking about Evans coming over to the funeral and what you might say to her and blah-" Sirius was cut off mid sentence by James.

"Did I say that out loud?" asked James aghast.

"No but you don't exactly have a poker face. I could tell you were thinking about how to engage with her in a grave environment as a funeral, given that you two never talk, you guys only fight."

"Wow you're almost at par with Remus." scoffed James.

Sirius gave James a smug look to which James scoffed, again.

"No but seriously what _are _you gonna say? Or are you gonna say anything at all?"

"I don't know. After that last day of OWLs I don't think she'll be particularly ecstatic to see me. Also do you think she'll forgive Snape? After he called her a you know what?"

"Hey don't engage me with these mush talks." said Sirius, going all defensive.

"_You _wanted to talk about my Lily situation!"

"I wanted to talk about how you'll engage her in a conversation, not about some supposition of Lily ending things with Snape."

"There was _nothing_ between the two that needed ending!" retorted James in a childlike manner.

"Mind your tenses. You never know if Lily has actually ended things. She is a forgiving sorta person you know. But of course _you _must already know." said Sirius, rolling his eyes.

"THERE WAS NOTHING TO END!" said James.

"Yes! Okay! Fine. She may have not ended her very platonic relationship with Snivellus where they sit together in Potions, make and share notes together and even hangout together. They may go back to being _friends_ again.", finished Sirius, hoping he got all the technicalities correct. James was extra touchy when it came to Lily. Not just right now, but right from their first year.

"But he called her a _mudblood_. And she _knows _what that means! How could she just forgive him? Is she that low on self esteem? She isn't! _I _know it for a fact. She's kicked my self esteem through the roof when it has come to it. She can't forgive him at any given cost! I would make his life a living hell if he got away with making friends with her again after having called her that. Lily and I, for the record, will have the biggest fight of the five years we've known each other." ranted James.

"Wow, you really think a lot about her. By the way, there is _also _a possibility that she may not forgive him at all." added Sirius, cautiously. He was enjoying James's rant about how Lily should essentially give up on everyone and marry James. In James's mind, Sirius mused, James and Lily were already married, and it showed in James's one sided bickering with his supposed wife.

"Well it is the_ only_ correct decision. To never forgive him and never share a seat with him in Potions!" scoffed James.

Sirius nodded in agreement, finding James amusing. Silence fell around them and they soon found themselves discussing Frank and his mother. James and Sirius were both fond of Frank and were absolutely shattered to hear his dad's death. The two of them discussed if it'll be awkward having him around. James mind kept drifting off thinking if Lily would come visit Frank which she usually did over the summers, along with Alice. James let his mind wander with thoughts of Lily, especially now that his dad was home he was more or less, free to think about her. He wondered if she's seeing someone this summer. In their fourth year there was this bloke, Adam, from Hufflepuff that she started dating in the summer and their relationship lasted nearly 4 months. For James they were the worst four months of his life. The thought of Lily seeing anyone right now made James's stomach churn uncomfortably. Sirius was talking about some prank he wanted to pull when they'd reach Hogwarts but realised that James had already drifted off. Sirius then closed his eyes and tried to catch some sleep himself. Tomorrow Mrs. Longbottom and Frank would be arriving, and with them will be arriving a need for tact, in which Sirius wasn't quite equipped.

* * *

**A/N: So, it has been, about 3 years since I've last published a story? I guess yes. I just decided to write this on a whim. If you find any typos or grammatical or spelling errors, essentially any errors, leave a review or Private Message me, I'll be really grateful. **** Anyway, this is a busy semester for me in college and i can only hope i'll be uploading weekly. Thank you so much for reading you guys. Love ya.**


	2. A Day With Guests

CHAPTER TWO

Lily held her quill in her hand, looked at the last few lines that she wrote, huffed in frustration, crumpled up the paper and threw it away.

"This is impossible." she remarked in utter frustration.

She had been trying to write a letter to Frank for the past two days, ever since Alice had written to her about Frank's father's death. To say the least Lily had gone into a shock learning about this. Frank and Lily had been quite good friends especially after Alice started dating Frank in their fifth year. Lily knew that the wizarding world was not half of what it used to be when she was in the early years of her education. She had been reading The Daily Prophet very religiously but it was painfully evident that the Ministry had been trying to underplay the actual level of threats that the wizards and witches were exposed to, especially the muggle-borns or anyone who sided with them. She wondered if she herself was at all equipped to handle, should she become a victim to, the hate towards muggle-borns. She sourly remembered the last day of OWLs when Snape had called her a mudblood. She scoffed at the irony that her very first encounter with this hate was with someone she was friends with for more than five years. _Could facing this hate ever again be as painful as it was when Sev said it? _she thought. She realised that if she could survive being called a mudblood by a friend, she could survive pretty much anything else.

Lily looked down at the debris of her crumpled letters dejectedly. She wondered if Alice could instead write to Frank on her behalf. She scoffed at the ridiculous idea. She then wracked her brain to try and remember other students whose parents were worked for the Ministry. There was Charlie in fifth year whose mother was in the Ministry. She listed the students of her own batch in her mind. There was her friend Marlene whose father and mother both worked for the Ministry, in the Auror Office, then there was Hestia Jones whose parents were both Healers at St. Mungo's. They had been keeping just as busy with patients exposed to or attacked directly by dark magic kept showing up. Her mind then went on to the boys of her year and for some odd reason the thought that she remembered that James's father worked in the Ministry made her extremely uncomfortable. She remembered how she'd found out about this little fact in her fourth year when Frank had been explaining Lily something about bubotuber pus, when Potter had popped in to discuss something about the Ministry. Frank had later told Lily that James's father had just made the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, where Frank's father worked too. She took a moment to digest this little newly discovered piece of information. She, in an odd moment, wondered if Frank's father died while he was working with James's father. She shook her head as if to ward off such thoughts. At the end she decided to write the letter to Frank.

_Dear Frank, _

_I wish I had the courage to hope for this letter to find you well. I don't. And while __I do hope it does, it's alright if __you don't have the head space to deal with condolences that __must be pouring in or__ to read this letter __(mostly because I had crumpled up nearly seven letters before this one, and I have no idea if this letter makes any more sense than the others __d__id__). I must __tell__ you how terribly and awfully sorry I am about hearing the demise of your father. I can never, never begin to imagine how you must be feeling and that in itself is frustrating. I wish I could be there right now. I feel so idle just sitting here not even being able to form words to express my condolences._

_I really hope you pull through this Frank. I won't take much of your time but I'd like you to know that if at all you need to talk about this or about anything other than this, then I'm only a letter away. _

_Lily._

Lily wasn't highly appreciative of what she'd written but she decided that this was probably the best she could do at the moment. She rushed to her owl, Amaia, before she could change her mind about sending this letter. She tied the letter to the owl's leg and sent her away with the letter to find Frank. As she was closing the window, she looked outside . It was a quiet Tuesday. She wished she was at Hogwarts. It would have been a busy day, corridors bustling with students trying to reach their classes, some fighting or bickering, some holding hands. She never had seen the castle in August. She wondered how the August sky would pair with the castle's majestic presence. At home she had to put up with her sister and her whale of a boyfriend. It was some consolation that her dad truly despised Vernon, Petunia's boyfriend. She could tell that her mother wasn't exactly thrilled about Vernon but she never outwardly showed her dislike towards him. Her father, however, would occasionally drop hints that Vernon shouldn't boss around Petunia so much. He'd keep saying things like, "That's all good but what do _you _think Tuney?", or "I think Petunia should have the only say on whether she wants to finish her college first and then get married. It isn't mine or Rose's decision. Neither is it anyone else's.". But despite these efforts, Lily reasoned, they had the obligation of being supportive of what their daughter wanted. And so they had reluctantly agreed to have Petunia's wedding this time of the next year.

She'd written to Hestia and Marlene asking if they'd like to meet up in Diagon Alley on Friday. She thought it'll be better if she went out with them before attending the funeral on Sunday. She hardly knew what she was going to say to Frank or anyone at all there. She wondered if she might feel utterly left out because that almost always happened whenever she'd be at a gathering of witches and wizards outside of Hogwarts. Everyone seemed to know everyone. She knew Alice would be there. The thought that James Potter might be there too also made her uncomfortable. The two of them hadn't been, to say the least, able to stay cordial around each other for a record of five years in a row. She hoped he wouldn't say anything provoking (which she knew he almost always did) and she hoped she wouldn't get back at him with some snappy retort (which she, again, knew she almost always did) for the sake of maintaining the decorum. With a sigh she decided to go for a stroll in the park she'd played in as a kid, but then the thought of running into Snape deterred her. Lily and Alice had been visiting Frank every summer since her fourth year. She knew that Alice would want to visit Frank before she had to formally meet him at the funeral and she also knew that Alice would ask Lily to accompany her. She wasn't opposed to this idea given that it might cut through the tension before the funeral and in turn make the funeral less awkward for her. She looked around with what to do with her spare time and settled for a cup of tea and some leftover cookies she and her mother had baked on Sunday and went to sit on the terrace.

* * *

Wednesday morning arrived and brought with it five suitcases, a seventeen year old boy who couldn't look any more distraught than he already did, a middle aged woman who gave off a very authoritarian air but if anyone looked closer they'd be able to tell she was hardly keeping it together. Before the guests had arrived Euphemia had already had Fleamont, James and Sirius ready and waiting for the guests in the foyer. James carefully watched Frank, who at this point, James concluded, didn't give a damn about how put together he looked. James and Sirius had had hell from Euphemia this morning about dressing well to receive the guests. She'd woken them up at half past seven much to the disappointment of Sirius.

"It's bad manners to receive guests looking as if you'd just woken up. They won't feel welcomed." Euphemia had said.

"Well, if they had to come at eight in the morning I'm beginning to question if they really_ are _welcomed." grumbled Sirius, rubbing his eyes.

James snorted and Sirius noted Euphemia looked a little amused.

"Welcome Augusta, Frank." said Euphemia with her characteristic warm smile.

Augusta and Frank thanked everyone for letting them stay here. James and Sirius levitated the five trunks towards the guest room as everyone settled down in the dining hall for breakfast. Breakfast was a quiet affair. No one really spoke except for some questions that Augusta had regarding the Ministry officials at her house. Augusta was practically Euphemia minus the latter's sense of humour. Almost everyone including Fleamont were freakishly scared of Augusta. She had been Fleamont's and Euphemia's senior by three years at Hogwarts and had more often than not caught the two of them taking strolls around the castle post curfew. But of course James and Sirius understood what strolls around the castle post curfew really meant. Everyone at the Ministry, who knew Augusta, had great reverence for her and also knew that she always cuts through everyone's bullshit. To James and Sirius she might be the only lady whom they were scared of a little. Frank had been mostly silent on everything. James tried making polite conversation and Sirius made every effort to bite back an inappropriate remarks for James's comments. After breakfast Fleamont, Augusta and Euphemia left for the Ministry. Augusta worked in the Department of International Cooperation while Euphemia worked at Wizengamot as an expert and advisor to the jury on magical law.

Frank, James and Sirius were left home alone. The three of them sat in JFrank's room awkwardly. James and Sirius felt more awkward than Frank did. The two of them realised that Frank had retreated into a shell of his own. He'd nod or smile occasionally on something the two of them said but other than that he maintained his poise and stared off into space. It wasn't like him to do this. Frank resembled Remus in his mannerism but was someone with quite a lively sense of humour. Not that Remus wasn't funny. Remus's humour was more reserved, only people who hanged around him could tell if he was joking. He'd say things with such a poker face that the person who didn't know him might just assume that he's utterly pissed with them. Frank on the other hand was quite a famous prefect cause he'd joke around with just about anyone (except of course Slytherins). Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws and for obvious reasons Gryffindors loved Frank, he knew almost everyone by their names and made a point to talk to people he hadn't spoken to in a while. To see him in such a distraught state made James and Sirius absolutely desperate to figure out a way to make him feel better.

"Shit!" exclaimed Frank suddenly.

"What is it?" asked Sirius, grateful that something other than a "mhmm" came out of Frank.

"I forgot to tell Alice that we'd be moving here. Lily and Alice were supposed to come by today to stay over."

"To stay over?" asked James, as his eyes grew a little wide but he composed himself when he saw Sirius smirking at him out of the corner of his eyes.

"Yes. Oh Merlin, I was just so occupied with myself I absolutely forgot." said Frank with a tired sigh. He went up to where his luggage was kept and brought back a small diary and started writing in it frantically.

James and Sirius exchanged worried looks.

"It's good you know, to express your .. feelings by writing it down. I've heard it really helps." remarked James awkwardly, not knowing what else to say.

Sirius was just trying to eat up his laughter while also mouthing the words, _you are horrible at this prongs. _James kicked him.

Frank looked up quite amused himself.

"Oh it isn't like that," explained Frank, "it was a gift from Alice for my 16th birthday. She has one exactly like this and whatever I write in this shows up within seconds in her diary. It rattles a bit when there's a new message."

James and Sirius looked mildly surprised at the brilliant piece of work and wondered why they hadn't thought of something like that_._

"So you're going to ask them to come here instead? I can give you the exact address. Alice can apparate now, right?" asked James, not once realising he was way ahead of himself.

"Oh no no no, I was just writing to ask them to not come here at all. It's already so much inconvenience to you and your family with me and mum." said Frank in an apologetic tone, not looking up from the diary.

"Hey! No it is absolutely no inconvenience! If not for a stay over they can definitely come over for the evening." Sirius spoke up, hoping that Frank would say yes and this awkward situation would be dissipated with the arrival of Frank's girlfriend and James's unofficial wife.

"Yeah I guess that makes much more sense." Frank thought aloud, "are you sure you guys don't have a problem?" he added.

"Seriously Frank, James would practically be jumping in his seat if it wasn't for the grim atmosphere." Sirius remarked.

Frank smiled despite of himself. He loved Sirius's habit of addressing the elephant in the room with such ease. James was glowering at Sirius to which the latter paid no attention to.

"Although I have to warn, Lily might just refuse to come once she comes to know whose house she has to come to meet me." said Frank, smirking at James. James rolled his eyes at the two of them.

"Yeah fine go ahead, laugh at my expense." said James, half relieved that the tension in the room disappeared a bit and half anxious about Frank's comment on Lily changing her mind about coming here.

"Alice is saying she's going to get Lily in ten minutes. So let's say they take about twenty minutes arguing on whether Lily should come here or not, they'd be here in half an hour." said Frank, thoughtfully.

James could feel his excitement taking over his senses. Sirius sat in his chair arms behind his head. _This should be fun, _he thought, amused.

* * *

Lily waited for Alice, with her overnight bag ready. They were supposed to leave right now but for some reason Alice was late by fifteen minutes. She was waiting at her windowsill, reading when she heard a pop outside the window. She looked up to see Alice, but apparently she had no bag. She thought maybe she's coming back from Frank's after keeping her bag there. It might be difficult to apparate with two bags maybe, Lily reasoned. Lily paused for a while and wondered why everything seems like some reasoning puzzle to her, why was she always compelled to _solve_ everything that doesn't go the way it's supposed to. But it all made sense. It would also explain why Alice was late. She skipped to the door and let Alice in, satisfied with her explanation of why Alice was late and why she had no bag.

"Hey there Lils." exclaimed Alice and pulled Lily into a hug. Lily thought she heard a nervous quiver in Alice's voice but she dismissed it thinking she was probably worried about being late.

"Hi Al." Lily said as she hugged her back.

"I wish mum and dad were here to meet you but they left this morning to book a venue for Tuney's wedding next year." Lily sounded apologetic.

"Oh it's really no bother, I'll meet them when I come to drop you back." said Alice, really worried over what she was going to say next. "You know there's a slight bit of change in plans." Alice started.

Lily raised her eyebrows, curiously.

"So Frank's place has been sealed by the Ministry, you know, something to do with security breach or something. The Ministry wanted to be sure the place was squeaky clean before the funeral took place," explained Alice, hoping Lily wouldn't mind going to Potter's, "so Frank and his mother are currently living with the Potter's." Alice finished, saying the last part pretty glibly.

Lily's eyes grew wide at the thought. _Surely Alice doesn't mean to take me Potter's place to meet with Frank?_ Lily thought. _It would be another level of awkward._ But the pleading look on Alice's face conveyed quite the opposite meaning. Lily's face became pale at the thought of going over to stay Potter's. She looked towards her bag and Alice followed her friend's and quickly understood what was playing on Lily's mind.

"Oh no no, Lily we'll come back by late evening." Alice cleared the confusion of why she didn't have a bag.

"AL! I can't go to Potter's house!" exclaimed Lily, aghast.

"Oh come on it won't be that bad! I never leave you alone!" fought Alice.

"You _always_ leave me alone. I've spent more time baking and reading with Frank's mother than he himself probably did." Lily said, almost in a state of panic.

"That's why she likes you more than she likes me!" said Alice, realisation dawning upon her pretty face.

"Oh can we please come back to how you'll leave me alone with James Potter?"

"I'm pretty sure Augusta will be there too! She and Frank both had moved to the Potter's!"

This made Lily's nerves calm only a bit. Although she knew, Augusta or no Augusta, James would come to pick on her at any given cost. But Lily couldn't resist the puppy eyes Alice put up.

"Only till late evening." said Lily, with a definite tone to her voice.

"I love you more than I love Frank!" exclaimed the other witch, "don't tell him I said that though." she added quickly.

Lily rolled her eyes, amused, but the anxiety was gnawing away at her stomach._ But then again,_ she thought,_ it's better to meet with Potter before the funeral. She might be able to contain her anger at the funeral if she meets him now and has a small row with him in private. She could then just scowl at him all day long at the funeral._ She shook her head resignedly at her absurd thought process.

Lily held Alice's hand as the latter prepared to apparate. With a pop, they disappeared from Lily's living room.

* * *

James, Sirius and Frank were now in the living room as they waited for the two girls to show up. Or it could pretty much be _just_ Alice, as James reminded himself constantly. The truth was he really was looking forward to meet her or in their case they just exchange scowls and smirks the former usually from Lily and the latter naturally from James. He hadn't been able to talk to her ever since the Snaoe incident happened just a couple of months back. James swore to himself he wouldn't say anything that could trigger her Lily-mad-o-meter. He wanted to know if she still spoke to Snape. He still didn't know what he'd do or say if she told him that she in fact, is talking to Snape despite of everything. He debated if he should pick a fight with her in this case or if he shouldn't- _pop._

James's head whipped up to see if it was just Alice or Lily and Alice but instead saw his mother and Mrs. Longbottom coming to the living room through the foyer. They usually come back at around five in the evening. It was only half past eleven. He gave them a questioning look.

"The Ministry is surveying the floo networks throughout. They are practically opening up the walls and everything, it's impossible to work. Half the employees have left." answered Euphemia to James's confused expression, "what _are _you lot doing in the living room, are you waiting for someone?"

"Uh, yeah, Alice and Lily were going to visit me at my home but I just completely forgot to mention moving here to her, so I asked them to visit us here instead." Frank answered quickly, the tip of his ears turning red.

Augusta started at Frank but Euphemia paid no attention to it.

"Lily as in Lily Evans?" asked Euphemia incredulously, a smirk appearing at her lips. Sirius winked at Euphemia confirming the latter's doubt.

"Oh finally I'll get to meet this girl who apparently has flames growing on her head." said a very amused Euphemia, looking at her son from the corner of her eyes. James was going to protest but Augusta spoke up, "Oh she's a lovely witch! And a very smart one too. She'd read most of the different International treatises while she would stay over at our place and she's an excellent baker too! Taught me a trick or two." Everyone eyed Augusta warily. She hardly ever praised anyone this much. _Wow she must really love Evans, _thought James, quite dumbfounded. Euphemia was even more excited to meet the girl that her son had been gushing over ever since he stepped into Hogwarts.

There was a faint pop that everyone heard and they all (except James) looked outside in the gardens. Alice the dark haired witch was walking towards the entrance and a red haired witch who looked quite uncertain but walked confidently followed the former.

Euphemia went to the door to receive the girls, while everyone stayed back in the living room. The bell rang before she could reach the door. James still didn't know if Lily had come or not. Everyone could hear some greetings being exchanged in the foyer but they waited patiently for the guests _or guest__, _James thought. Euphemia entered the living room, followed by Alice. Sirius almost laughed out at James's pouty face when James realised Lily didn't enter. Lily stumbled in the living room only a moment later. Anyone watching James's expression could've noticed anticipation, disappointment and satisfaction pass through his eyes all within fractions of a second.

"Can't keep your cool around me, Evans?" smirked James and realised his first mistake. Before Lily could scowl in return, Augusta, who was standing next to James swatted his head so hard he let out a loud "Ow."

"Apologise to your guest, boy." reprimanded Augusta.

James looked horrified while Lily and Sirius were trying their best to contain their laughter.

"Well?" said Augusta giving James a pointed look.

He looked to his mother and Sirius for some support but he knew he was just pulling at straws. No one ever dared cross Augusta.

"I guess I'm sorry, love." apologised James, with faux sweetness in his voice, but it did give him some satisfaction on calling her love. James smirked as he saw Lily scowl for a moment before regaining her composure and telling him, "It's quite alright, Potter."

Lily was pretty much dreading this all the way to his home. She couldn't imagine just how arrogant Potter might be in his home if he was such a git in a place away from home. However the moment Augusta had smacked him on the head, Lily felt reassured.

"Well this is lovely. Have a seat everyone." said Euphemia, as she herself took a seat. James sat next to Augusta and the two of them were sitting opposite to Lily , who were on the same sofa, a centre table separated them. Alice and Frank sat on the sofa to the right that was perpendicular to the one on which Lily was sitting while the one on the left was occupied by Euphemia. Sirius then took seat next to Lily thinking she might feel quite left out if he went to sit over with Euphemia.

There was an awkward silence that followed after everyone had exchanged pleasantries and Lily and Alice had conveyed their condolences, and before anyone could say anything, Augusta got up and asked Lily to join her in a walk outside in the gardens. Lily naturally agreed. Augusta was the only one in the room (except Frank and Alice but they were just busy in their own little world) to whom Lily was close. She followed Augusta out while James followed her with his eyes.

"She was literally stomping her foot that she wouldn't come here. You owe me one James." smirked Alice as she and everyone else noticed James's eyes following Lily outside.

James scoffed and Sirius laughed.

Frank and Alice excused themselves and went over to Frank's room.

"No, seriously," Euphemia said in between chuckles, "what did you do to make her hate you so much?"

"Try asking her out after every class ends." smirked Sirius.

James scowled at his best mate.

"She really does have gorgeous hair and stunning eyes. Better than you had described. It's a shame I should've told her this." teased Euphemia.

"Oh, call it off you two, won't you?" cried James, "you'll scare her away."

"Yes and you apparently welcome her with the words "Can't keep your cool around me?" to make her feel at home right?" retorted Sirius.

"I just can't help it around her!" said James in defence.

Augusta and Lily chose that moment to enter the living room.

"Ah, Lily, we were just talking about you." said Euphemia warmly, but she could feel James's eyes staring into the side of her head.

Lily let out a small "oh", not knowing how to respond to that.

"Now, you," started Augusta pointing at James, "better behave yourself around her."

"I'll behave if she goes out with me." replied James, smirking and realising he did the same mistake again._ I just can't fucking help it can I? Damn this girl. _"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'll behave." James finished when he saw the look on Augusta's face.

"Right now then, your mother and I have something to talk over, Ministry business, you two attend to your guest well."

Lily looked mildly panicked, but she decided she'll live. Whatever Augusta must've to discuss with Mrs. Potter must be important. And just after what all Augusta had told her about the Ministry and everything, she can't go on expecting Augusta to bake cakes with Lily now can she? She gave a sweet smile to Augusta and thanked James's mum for having her over.

"Oh don't be ridiculous Lily, it's really relieving to know that you actually exist. I thought James was besotted with some imaginary girl." replied Euphemia watching James go into eternal shock, "and call me Euphemia." she finished.

Lily smiled and nodded politely.

"Be good." with a final warning from Augusta, she and Euphemia left for Euphemia's study.

As she watched them go, her back to the two Marauders, she suppressed a groan.

"So Evans, how much did Alice bribe you to convince you to be here?" asked Sirius.

"Five weeks worth of D.A.D.A. homework." answered Lily simply turning around.

Sirius whistled at this and James just rolled his eyes.

"Come on we'll show you around." offered James.

"Okay."

James found it a bit odd she didn't say something scathing in return but didn't pay much attention to it. _Maybe she's really not comfortable, _he thought. The thought unsettled him. Back in castle everyone was their own master. They did as they pleased. But Lily was_ here_, in_ his_ home, with a friend, who was busy with her boyfriend, and James thought it was entirely his responsibility that Lily should feel welcomed.

"So you've been to the front gardens, there's a quidditch pitch in the back, we can go there in the evening." said James.

"Why do you have a quidditch pitch?" asked Lily almost spontaneously. At the same time she reminded herself, _be civil. Be civil. Be civil._

James for one didn't know how to answer that question. James was used to having guests who would marvel at his house that was practically a mansion but he noticed that as they roamed around the house aimlessly, Lily, instead of gazing at the ceilings and the grand chandeliers, which was what usually the new guests did, was looking at family portraits and recent photographs of James, Sirius, Mr. and Mrs. Potter. If there weren't any pictures to look at she would just look around aimlessly a vague expression on her face. They finally ended in Sirius's room and sat down on the bed. Lily crossed her legs, Sirius sat beside her and James lay down on his side, propped up on his elbow, the side of his head rested on his palm. James's mother entered the room sans Augusta and sat down on one of the chairs. After a minute or so had passed Lily spoke up.

"You've a very cosy home." she said to Euphemia.

"What?" asked James, confused, as he was only used to hearing things like, huge, great, grand, beautiful etc. regarding his house.

"A cosy home. That feels like _home_ to begin with. Unlike what one would imagine a mansion to be like, huge, cold, unresponsive." she mused.

"Are you saying this mansion isn't huge?" asked James and Euphemia could've swatted James's arm had she been sitting close to him.

"No, it is huge but it doesn't feel like there's much distance between your room and your parents' and Sirius's. One wouldn't feel left out or disconnected from the family. It's very well thought out."

"Well thank you dear. That's the most lovely thing anyone has ever said about this place." Euphemia was practically glowing with a warm smile. She had never expected a sixteen year old to have noticed the efforts she had put into planning out the rooms. She'd had her own study and that of Fleamont moved to the first floor so the second floor was the one where everyone had their rooms. Unlike her maternal home, where every person had their own wing of the mansion to themselves and hardly ever came out of their spaces to interact, Euphemia had wanted a place that could make family the escape of the members from the outside world instead of ones own solitude. James knew what his mother was thinking. He was thinking the exact same thing. He too had never expected for anyone to have noticed such a trivial, and hard to point out feature of his house that made this mansion so much different and better than the others.

Euphemia bid her farewell. The three of them kept quiet until Sirius decided it was too boring for him. So he started asking Lily a series of questions about what-would-a-muggle-do.

"So you just have to pick up a pheletone?"

"Telephone, yeah. Everyone's telephone has a unique number assigned to it. More like a name. So if I've to call you, I'll dial the number of your telephone. When your telephone rings, you answer it and you could hear the other person."

"With no delay in time?" asked James curiously.

"I think a fraction of a second but not later than that."

"Wow." said James and Sirius.

"I wish there was something just as instant to communicate with in the wizarding world."

"Have you seen Alice and Frank's diary?" asked James almost spontaneously.

Lily nodded, "I asked Alice where she got it but the shop that sold it shut down ages ago. Bad business or something. Her grandmother had left the pair of the diary for her."

"Okay what do you do if there's a fire?" Sirius asked. By this time he had a long list of things he had to ask.

"Depends. If it's an electrical fire, you _never_ throw water to douse it. You could get electrocuted."

James and Sirius gave her confused looks.

"Fried to death." she explained.

James was enjoying just having Lily this close to him without fighting or her insulting him. He could forever watch her explaining things, animatedly. A stray thought entered his mind that maybe she will never like him back. James had been experiencing these mood swings quite a lot from the past year. He couldn't control his emotions taking occasional swings at him. Sirius went down to the kitchens to get something to eat. Lily and James remained alone in the room.

Lily had been meaning to ask about James's father but didn't want to in front of anyone. She thought he might just say something that would irk her but so far he'd really behaved himself and made Lily feel at ease. So she decided to risk it.

"Potter?"

"Mm?"

"Your father was the head of the department where Frank's dad worked?" asked Lily apprehensively.

"What's it to you?!" snapped James.

The words had left James's mouth before his brain could comprehend what the question was. When he watched Lily's expression going from apprehensive to flashing angry, he realised his another mistake.

He would've apologised at that very moment had Frank and Alice not entered the room. Lily chose that moment to swallow her anger._ Just a few more hours,_ she reminded herself._ Still a git,_ she made a mental note.

For the rest of the evening Lily pointedly ignored James and not a word other than a polite smile here and there was exchanged. James spent the evening trying to tell everyone (his desired audience was Lily) about the different business houses of the wizarding world who lost business because someone in the inner circle was cheating on their spouse, everyone except Lily couldn't be bothered about it. This didn't go unnoticed by the gathering and especially by James. He mentally cursed himself for not being in control of himself. He knew he was wrong but he just couldn't get an opportunity to apologise in a proper manner.

When it was time to leave, she let out a sigh of relief. She said her goodbyes to everyone, including James however it was very curt and James couldn't apologise _again_ because Augusta just won't leave Lily's side.

As James lay down in his bed that night he was acutely aware of the wasted opportunity. But his mind hadn't been in the right place for at least the past two months. He'd had irrational reactions to simple situations. The marauders knew what was up with him but he couldn't go on explaining about his father to everyone so they could, to some extent, tolerate his occasional snappy attitude. But Lily Evans wasn't just anyone. She could make him practically forget about everything else in the world.

Lily couldn't believe James would become a sodding git in less than a fraction of a second. She huffed in frustration as she straightened her sheets. When she got inside the sheets, she felt peaceful. A rational part of her brain constantly rooted for James, saying, _that maybe he was too upset and disturbed by Franks's father's death given that his dad worked for the same department. _But the other part of Lily that has known James Potter and dealt with his obnoxious attitude for five years, told her, _he was still a git. _And Lily decided that, here, experience trumps reason.

* * *

**A/N: So I think I'm half asleep as I'm finishing up on this chapter. I haven't exactly proof-read the chapter but I'm uploading it nonetheless. I'll proof-read it tomorrow after a good long six hour long sleep. Until then you'll have to bear with my mixed up tenses or grammatical errors. Also leave a review maybe? **

**The guest reviewer for the previous chapter, thank you for leaving a review 3**

**Thanks for reading you guys , I love ya.**

**I'll update the next chapter next Saturday. Until then.**


	3. Ice Creams And Sprinkles

Chapter Three

Lily had to meet with her friends today in Diagon Alley. Thursday had passed in a second. With all the wedding preparation going on around days seemed to passing by so quickly. She groaned as Petunia screamed over the telephone about the venue being too small without a garden or something.

"It's not like the wedding is tomorrow y'know?" said Lily mostly to her dad, not wanting Petunia to shriek at her. Her dad chuckled.

"Come on Lils, play nice. I think your sister has been planning her wedding ever since she first went out with Vernon." said Donald.

"More like before she was born." scoffed Lily. Her father gave her a faux threatening look.

"How's Alice? We couldn't meet her that day even in the evening."

"She's good. She said hi to you guys."

"Sweet girl that one. Remember how scared she was when she saw someone speaking on the telly." he chuckled at the memory, "I thought you were going to stay over at her boyfriend's?"

"Oh yeah, but we went over to Potter's, where Frank was that day. Their parents had to discuss some important business." explained Lily hoping her father wouldn't notice how pathetic she was at lying. She hadn't exactly told her parents about the dismal pureblood propaganda going around in her world. Which is why she didn't tell anyone in her family about Franks's father's death.

"Potter as in the one who was the 'annoying git Potter'?"

"Potter as in the one who _is _the annoying git Potter." answered Lily bitterly.

"Oh come on Lil. Boys are like that when they try to get a girl's attention when they're young."

"When they're _young. _He's sixteen now. He'll be an adult in the wizarding world in less than a year."

"What happened that day. Your feelings look freshly hurt." noticed her dad, who was on the verge of laughing.

"You know most dads are protective of their daughters getting harassed by a boy." replied Lily rolling her eyes.

"Not me. I brought you up to be a fighter! But what really happen there?"

"Nothing really eventful, except when he said something about me not being able to keep my cool around him when I stumbled over something and when I asked something about his dad's work, he snapped"

"Why?"

"How would I know?"

"Lily I have been reading your newspaper, you leave it in the dining room often. Things don't exactly look jolly, you know?" remarked her dad, warily. Lily sighed and debated whether or not to tell him the truth. She took a seat next to him.

"It's just that our world is more or less divided into two factions. One that roots for the pureblood families, and want the muggle-borns, the likes of me with no magical background, to not be given an opportunity to study and learn magic. They think that if the muggle-borns marry into pureblood families they pollute the bloodline and the magical strength of the purebloods get deteriorated. The other faction believes that anyone who shows signs of performing wandless magic in their early years should be taught magic."

"Which side has the lead?" asked her dad innocently.

Lily let out sigh. _If only it was as simple, _she thought.

"The Ministry, is trying to contain the situation. The situation is pretty grim. More grim than that newspaper lets on. We were going to stay over because Franks's father died. On duty. But then the Ministry sealed his house so he and his mother came over to stay at the Potters'."

"His father _died?_" her father was quite perplexed. After a while he added, "what about Potter? Is he on the bad side?"

"No. Quite the opposite." as Lily said this, she realised for the first time ever since all of this pureblood business came to light that Potter was genuinely disgusted by it. She'd herself seen it on so many occasions, the marauders rescuing away small muggle-born first years from the bullying Slytherins.

"Where does his father work?"

"He worked at the same department as Frank's did." replied Lily, knowing where this was going.

"And you with all your over-thinking abilities couldn't fathom why he might be a bit touchy about this topic?" he looked at her curiously and grimly as he waited for an answer. Lily realised she may have been in the wrong regarding this.

"Yeah I think you might be right." admitted Lily. "He still is a git though." she quickly added. Although she found herself more and more sceptical of the last part. She shook her head. _It's maybe all this grim talk,_ she reasoned.

"I'll come back by five." she said, as she got up to leave and kissed her dad on the cheek.

"It's okay if you stay out late too you know. You're a big girl." replied her father, amused.

Lily shook her head and chuckled.

* * *

"So I heard you were at Potter's this Wednesday." said Marlene, with a little worried but amused tone nonetheless. Ever since that incident by the lake at the end of their fifth year, they have very cautiously avoided the topic of either Snape or Potter. They have all throughout these years warned her about Snape, and how he had started hanging out with the likes of Mulciber by the end of their second year. She'd defended Snape as much as a friend should, but Snape deserved none of it. Lily had always looked the best in people but with Snape she was hanging on to a very little good in him that was far outnumbered by his vices. As for Potter it's always been a rule with the girls that if he comes up in a conversation it usually ends up with Lily getting all riled up about him being a presumptuous git and then not talking for another hour.

"Why does everybody want to talk about that today?" asked Lily, rolling her eyes. She tried feigning a frustrated expression but the little talk she had with her father earlier in the morning had been pricking at the back of her head. However to quickly change the topic she asked, "How do you know I was at Potter's?"

"Oh Si-Black wrote to me." replied Marlene hesitatingly. At this Lily raised her eyebrows, her eyes wide.

"Black _wrote _to you?" she asked, disbelief in her eyes.

"Yes, he did. He wanted to talk about a new game plan Potter had devised for the next Quidditch season, you know, with most of the Ravenclaw chasers are now in their last year also their seeker will graduate this year. So they'll do everything to win the Cup this year. James thinks it is unwise to recruit so many seventh years into the team. When we'll be in our last year the Ravenclaw team would be quite weak with untrained young players. But this year they are quite strong. So James and Black invited me to practice with them at James's place. That's why he wrote to me." explained Marlene.

Lily found the explanation quite acceptable. However the very fact that Marlene would so desperately explain something as simple as quidditch practice with Potter and what he thinks about the Ravenclaw team, sounded fishy to her ears. Only when she was hiding or lying about something did Marlene explain anything so profusely. Another thing that she found off with her explanation was the fact that Black wrote to her instead of James, who has been her friend from before they came to Hogwarts.

"Why didn't Potter write to you?" asked Lily, knowing that this was a loophole in her story.

"I don't know .. er .. it's probably because he's been quite I don't know, distraught because of his dad and the whole Ministry business." answered Marlene sheepishly. She knew she was lying. This wasn't why Sirius had written to her instead of James, but she didn't entirely lie because Sirius did tell her about James being more or less of a mess because of his father. This was true. She felt bad for using James's pathetic condition to cover for herself but she wasn't lying.

Lily on the other hand was quite stunned to hear this. Guilt was slowly spreading through every fibre of her being. Lily being Lily would crumble under the guilt of having hurt_ anyone_. And that very much included anyone whose father had a dangerous job in such a time. Not only did she brazenly ask Potter about his father's connection with a man who had recently died, she had pointedly ignored his attempts at trying to make conversation with her throughout the day.

"Is it bad? I mean, is Potter really not fine?" asked Lily, very much aware of the voice inside her head growing louder with every passing second making her slowly drown in guilt.

Marlene noticing a twinge of guilt in her friend's voice answered, "Yeah, his dad has been keeping a very busy schedule recently. But that is the extent of what I know, Si-Black hasn't exactly been very clear but given that James hasn't written to me at all, or anyone for that matter, I'd say whatever it is that's eating up that boy, it's bad." she finished.

Lily nodded with a solemn face. She took all of this in. Just then, Hestia arrived with their butterbeers and plonked the glasses down on the table.

"What are you guys talking about?" she asked them.

"Oh nothing, I told you about Lily going over to the Potter's on Wednesday, that's what." replied Marlene, trying to steer the conversation away from why she has been writing to Sirius.

"Yeah, no wonder Lily here looks like she's seen a ghost." chuckled Hestia, "So how was it? Visiting Potter?" she asked.

"I didn't visit_ him. _I was there to visit Frank and his mother." replied Lily, defensively.

"So you didn't talk to him at all?" asked Marlene, incredulously.

"We did talk, he showed me around his house and everything. His mother was really sweet. Augusta hit him when he tried being a prig around me." Lily told them, chuckling.

"You know you have some nerve calling Mrs. Longbottom by her first name. Not many people do, even most of her colleagues don't call her by her first name." remarked Marlene, "As kids James and I used to be so freaking scared of her. It's only around her that I've seen him being still for more than ten seconds at a stretch." she finished, laughing out loud.

"She's such a sweet lady, I don't understand why she's like this with you people." replied Lily.

"Oh please, miss goody two shoes. She's besotted with you for obvious reasons." said Marlene, teasing.

"Although what's up with her clothes?" asked Lily as if she suddenly remembered Mrs. Longbottom's eccentric dressing sense.

"Oh! Don't even go there. It's so much hard to keep a straight face when she scolds you, while all the feathers on her hats move as if they're snarling at us too." said Marlene between bouts of laughter.

Lily couldn't help but laugh herself.

* * *

James was flying on his broomstick absent-mindedly. Frank had asked the boys to leave him alone. He was still in a better shape the day Alice and Lily had come by, but since yesterday he was having a hard time. Mrs. Longbottom and Frank were supposed to leave their neighbourhood to make preparations for the funeral. Sirius asked him if James would want to visit Diagon Alley. He had been visiting the Diagon Alley so much even without James, that the latter had been pretty suspicious of Sirius, which is why James decided he'd tag along today. Sirius's face had been that of confusion, as if he was solving some kind of puzzle in his head. James was waiting for Sirius to get ready. _Honestly, what is up with him, _James thought. Sure Sirius takes a little more time than the other four marauders to get dressed usually, but this really was taking long.

Sirius hesitated. Should he wear the night-blue shirt that Marlene had nonchalantly commented he looked good in? But she'll probably notice he wore it again and might get the wrong idea. _More like the right idea, _a voice inside his head barked at him. He shook his head and decided to wear a black shirt instead. He left for the main gate but not before waving hysterically at James from his bedroom window who was flying around on his broomstick aimlessly, his mind somewhere else.

Sirius, James noticed, was being extremely fidgety. It was weird to experience a fidgety Sirius. He had a very laid back air around him. _I could have been laid back but damn that redhead, _James thought.

"So where to?" asked James, curiously observing his unsuspecting friend who was apparently looking around and it seemed he was looking out for something very particular.

"Huh what?" asked a very zoned-out Sirius.

"Oh what's wrong with you Pads?" asked a very frustrated but amused James.

"Oh nothing I was just thinking maybe Flourish and Blott's?" replied Sirius, taking a wild guess, thinking if Lily was with Marlene and Hestia, she might have dragged the two of them there.

James eyebrows disappeared in his hairline.

"You wanna go _where_?" he asked, and suddenly as if the devil had possessed James, he pinned Sirius to a wall, his wand out, pointed at Sirius's face and a grim expression on his face. With an urgency in his voice he asked, "What was the first thing I said about Lily?"

"Wha-? James let me g-" Sirius struggled to get out James's grip.

"Just answer me."

"What are you two doing?!" a shrill voice interrupted James's inquiry. James was about to dismiss the intruders, till he saw a flash of red hair appear in his peripheral vision. He whipped his head to his side and there she was. "Evans." he said with an incredulous tone. Sirius tried to struggle out of James's grip but the latter didn't let go.

"Just answer the damn question-" James's eyes grew wide when he realised that he didn't want the answer to that question in front of Lily, but it was too late, and for once he was hoping Sirius or the fake Sirius would give the wrong answer.

"That 'the damn girl has green eyes and red hair, she's practically a walking Christmas party and that-'"

"Yeah okay we're good yeah, I got that." James quickly interrupted loudly before Sirius started avenging himself by listing out every embarrassing thing James had said about Lily in the past five years.

When James turned around to face his three classmates, and tried to catch a quick glance at Lily who had turned red like a tomato, from anger, embarrassment or the August sun he couldn't really tell and did not exactly had the courage to figure which was it.

"So ladies, sorry for the little fiasco, James here has a history of losing his cool around Evans." Sirius apologised, with a charming smile for the girls and a scowl for James.

"Yeah but I don't think _I _was the one losing my cool. You took an hour to get dressed, you've been fidgety ever since we got here, you keep looking around for something, you're barely paying attention to what I'm asking _and _you said you wanted to go to Flourish and Blott's! I'm sorry if I felt compelled to check if you're an imposter." finished James.

"Have you maybe tried couple's counselling?" asked Hestia rolling her eyes. James scowled at her.

"Well, I've got to agree with James here. You wanting to go Flourish and Blott's would've forced me to question you." remarked Marlene with a smirk.

"We're going there by the way, if you guys would like to join." said Hestia, hoping they would just get moving already. James could see Lily starting to protest and almost immediately said, "I think we'll get something to eat first-"

"What? No, no, no, we'd love to joins you girls." Sirius cut in quickly, shoving James in the general direction of the shop.

"So! Hestia, how has summer been?" asked Sirius, paced forward leaving James behind, trying to get in between Hestia and Marlene putting both his arms around their shoulders which pushed Lily in the back, falling in step with James. James had no idea what Sirius was playing at and if he should say hi to Lily after what had happened at his home. _It'll be rude if I don't say hi_, he thought.

"Hi." greeted Lily in a soft voice.

"Hi." replied James, surprised yet again.

An awkward silence engulfed them. They walked quite unsure of themselves swaying away a bit and then realising they were too far apart for it to be polite and then closing the gap between them trying to be as subtle about it as possible. Lily wondered if she should apologise. But she hadn't had time to think -_overthink_, a voice in her head said- through whatever she's been told about James today, from her dad's doubts to Marlene's confirmation of the same. What was even more confusing was James's silence. Normally as Sirius had said, he'd lose his cool around her and would either make fun of her hair or would just embarrass her incessantly by complimenting her every time he'd lay eyes on her._ Was he mad at me?_ Lily thought and her eyes grew wide in confusion. It felt weird having James Potter mad at her. In the past he'd looked positively hurt when she had first refused to go out with him, but then he had just grown into an arrogant toerag who pestered her to go out with him. He had been annoying, cocky, insufferable, had bragged about them going out one day, but she can't remember any day or any given minute where he might have been mad. The thought was scary. She had seen James being mad at Sirius, last year for some reason, which also involved Sev. He had turned a blind eye to the poor boy. Sirius had roamed around the castle dejectedly for a month, kicking at random armours, falling asleep on the stairs sometimes. Lily on her patrol duty had often woken him up and taken him back to the Gryffindor tower but he'd just sleep in the common room. It went on for the whole of March but they made up in the first week of April. While Lily wasn't a sucker for James's random bursts of the appreciation of her, she never wanted to be on the receiving end of James's cold indifferent anger. She knew she had to apologise but she didn't want to apologise in front of her friends. She wracked her brain for some excuse to get Potter alone. Before she could come to a conclusion they had apparently reached their destination. Lily had kept walking straight till James had to call her name out to tell her they'd reached.

Lily's silence was unnerving James a great deal. Was she really that upset with him? _Well I did snap at her, _he thought. _I shouldn't have done that, she must have already been going through her own shit of dealing with the fact that Snape called her a mudblood, and the fact that muggle-borns were the victim base of this feud. She didn't once lose her temper with me, despite James's comments that she had, in the past, found extremely annoying. _He chanced a peek at her and saw her frowning, her lips pursed, nostrils flaring. James knew her way too well to know she was thinking about something she didn't like and something that she couldn't wrap her mind around. He'd seen her like this a number of times during Transfiguration. It was her weakest subject. She still was third in class after Sirius and himself though. He remembered when they had to turn the tea cut in a rat. She'd asked, "But professor! How can a tea cup develop complex body parts that need blood and veins, and a heart and a brain? It's made of porcelain!" Everyone had thought she was crazy. Her own friends had chuckled at her ignorance, even Snape thought it was a stupid question to ask. McGonagall had given some explanation which he didn't remember. All he remembered was that she seemed quite perplexed by the reaction she had received, and was not entirely convinced by the Professor's explanation. Later that day in the evening when she'd been sitting in the common room surrounded by books on Transfiguration, James had approached her. "Hey, Evans, I just wanted to talk to you about what you asked in McGonagall's class." He was quite nervous, he remembered. At first Lily had seemed really dismissive of him, she'd started scribbling something on her notes, but when he had just stood there, nervously running his hand through his hair, fidgeting with the corners of the books kept in a stack, Lily, as he thinks, took pity on him and asked him to have a seat across from her. "What did you want to talk about?" she had asked.

"You know how you said, that por-slin can't turn into blood and all that, what did you mean?" he had asked. He remembered she had looked at him for full ten seconds, before answering.

"Every living thing, that breathes, feels, eats and what not, it takes time to develop right? Eggs take so long to hatch for the chick to come out. The bird doesn't open its eyes for days. Then how is it possible to turn a tea cup into_ flesh?_ That tea cup was made of porcelain, I don't think you could make hair or eyes out of porcelain." Lily had explained in a quiet voice, all the time not looking at him

He had at that time assumed that her quietness was because she was embarrassed after the class made a spectacle of her but later through the years he'd find out (as he found about so many things about her) that she became quiet and her voice went hollow when she was unsure of herself, which didn't happen often unless someone compared magic with muggle stuff. He would spend hours crouched under his invisibility cloak in the empty classrooms where she and Snape brewed potions or in the Library. Snape would many times tell her to get rid of the small _notebook_ that she carried around to take quick notes. After such days James would go up to her and ask about her _notebooks,_ she would sound hollow and quiet. He didn't have to pretend to like them, as he would originally plan, because he ended up actually loving the idea of having parchments bound together in a flat form. Just as she had finished, he'd realised it actually made sense. Even his cousin had to wait for his dog, Daisy, to give birth to puppies for at least two months.

"It makes sense you know?" James had replied, running his hand through his hair. At this Lily raised her head and looked at him curiously as if asking him to go on. And so he did and told her about his cousin's dog and her puppies. She had seemed fascinated and kept asking him about the puppies, how old they were, their names etc. James had been more than happy to answer the questions she kept firing at him because then that meant he would have her emerald eyes fixed upon him and he could stare at them and hold her attention longer. He told her he'd grown up watching his mother turn his small broomstick into a blanket when it was bedtime. She had chuckled a bit at this which had (and still does) made him feel ten feet tall. "If it hadn't been for your question I'd have never thought about how a broomstick that is, in no way, half as soft as a blanket, gets turned into one." he had told her. At this she had given him a goofy grin and as James likes to remember she had a blushed a little too.

James looked down at her. She was looking around absent-mindedly. She looked lost. A pang of guilt hit James. He knew there were so many times that she had felt like she didn't belong here in the magical world. She had no connections, her parents were probably oblivious to the way muggle-borns were being treated and even if they did know, they could do little to help. James had always wanted for Lily to feel as belonged as he did in the wizarding world and if he hadn't been able to answer the one question that she had put to him then he had failed her. He decided he would apologise to her and if she was willing to listen at all to him, given that she almost never did when she was mad at him, he would tell her about anything she'd like to know.

"Oi Prongs, taking Evans on a date are you?" roared Sirius from behind James. James turned around to see Sirius and the two girls standing right outside Flourish and Blott's. James and apparently Lily too hadn't realised that they hadn't stopped at their destination. James saw Lily still walking ahead and called her. She turned around and looked like she had been woken from a deep sleep. James beckoned at her towards the shop.

As they entered the shop Hestia quickly left for the section which displayed books on political commentary. Marlene went somewhere towards the back. To James's surprise Sirius too walked away as if with a purpose, towards the fiction section. What surprised him even more was that Lily hadn't moved from her spot next to James. They stood there awkwardly at first and then were pushed farther inside the shop by the incoming crowd, when Lily spoke up.

"Are you mad at me?" asked Lily, perplexed by the choice of her own words. _Wow, tact, _she thought to herself. James looked positively bewildered and looked around himself in case Lily was talking to someone else.

"Who me?" asked James, when he realised she was, indeed, talking to him. She nodded quietly.

"Uh .. Evans I had to talk to you about something." said James. He wanted to apologise before she said anything and a whole new topic of conversation commenced.

"Yeah, me too. But let's just get out of here please." she requested as someone as tall as James came towards them carrying a stack of books and some cleaning equipments atop the stack and almost collided with Lily but James pulled her out of the guy's way.

"You should really try some stretching exercises you know, you might still be able to grow a few inches, unless you just want to get pushed around in your favourite book stores." James grinned at her good naturedly as he gently guided her out of the book store. She was walking right in front him, so he wasn't able to see her face, but he hoped to Merlin for her to not lash out on him in the middle of a book store.

"I'm of a perfectly acceptable height thank you. It's not my fault people like you just keep growing like trolls on steroids." quipped Lily. When James noticed Lily's voice lacked the usual cold tone it had when she spoke to him, he felt a weird warmth spreading through his chest.

As James guided her out of the store, his hands just about hovering over her shoulders, occasionally touching them, to steer her away from things or people she might bump into, she felt nervous. She could feel the warmth of his hands emanating on to her shoulders. It made her ticklish. _What did he want to talk to her about? Is it to tell __her that what she did was completely unacceptable and that she shouldn't mention his father again? That, seemed reasonable._ The two of them were outside of the store and looked around for a place to sit and talk.

"Let's get ice cream." James suggested and started walking towards Florean Fortescue's. James found them a booth and asked Lily what she wanted to eat. A while later he appeared with her Banana Split ice cream and to Lily's surprise he got himself Mint Chocolate Chips with rainbow sprinkles all over the ice cream. She looked at him with amused eyes.

"What?" he asked, indignantly.

"_Kids _have rainbow sprinkles on their ice creams."

"Are you telling me you have out grown your love for sprinkles?"

"No! I mean I don't think I have."

"Yeah me neither." he replied, flashing her a very childlike grin.

"But aren't you little old to be getting sprinkles on your ice cream?"

"What?! No! You're never too old!" protested James, "Did you stop getting sprinkles just because you were _older_?" he asked and the look on his face was that of complete horror.

"Didn't everyone?"

"_What?!" _James was mortified at thought of having given up sprinkles because someone earned a grey hair in their life. Lily had half a heart to laugh at his face. He looked like a kid who had just found out that Santa isn't real.

"I mean at least that's what I thought as to why people stopped getting sprinkles when they got older. I didn't even think about this until you showed up grinning at your rainbow sprinkles as if you've won a lottery." Lily said, rolling her eyes, smiling nonetheless.

"It's a horrible reason if you ask me. Leaving something just because people your age are leaving it." he said, digging into his ice cream, slicking the sprinkles on his fingers and then licking them off his fingers. Lily watched him eating the sprinkles, carefully so that none of them would fall.

"Looking at you marvelling at your sprinkles, I'm beginning to regret not getting them." Lily told him, as she picked up her spoon to eat her ice cream. Before she could dig in James quickly slipped her ice cream away from her and went over at the sprinkles counter. When he came back Lily's ice cream was barely visible. It looked like a landscape with hills covered in rainbow sprinkles. James gave her her ice cream back, grinning from ear to ear. He took some of the sprinkles from the empty space in her bowl and sprinkled them on his own ice cream.

"What! The guy won't let me have more sprinkles. Said I ate more sprinkles than all the kids, who come over for summers here, combined. Jerk. They are supposed to be nice." complained James, grumpily, but the moment he licked his ice cream, he was a ten year old boy again. Lily was enjoying grumpy childlike James. She let out a happy chirp when she first tasted the sprinkles with her banana split. James watched her as she closed her eyes and adorably shifted in her seat, enjoying her ice cream smiling endearingly. A little bit of sunshine fell on the top of her head and made her hair look even more vibrant than it already was, a few strands of hair had come undone from her braid and fell loosely around her face. To James she was very easily the most beautiful girl on the face of the earth. A little broken sprinkle was stuck at the corner of her mouth. Before James could stop himself he reached out and removed it.

Lily opened her eyes at the sudden foreign touch and saw James removing a sprinkle stuck to the corner of her mouth and putting it in his mouth. She hardly knew how to react to this. She would've easily swatted his hand away or at least shown her displeasure but instead she slowly felt a blush creep up from under her collar bones rising up to her neck and then to her cheeks. _It's probably the sun shining on the top of my bloody head. _

As soon as Lily opened her eyes and looked James straight in his eyes as he ate the sprinkle he'd just removed from her face, he braced himself for Lily to shout at him. His heart throbbed uncontrollably, not from the anticipation of a fight, he had far outgrown that fear, but from the blush that James could see rising up from her chest to cheeks making freckles appear on her nose. Was she _blushing? _Maybe it's the sun, he reasoned. _Maybe, it's not. _She had looked away and was not meeting his eyes now. He hated it when she looked away from him.

"So what did you .. er .. want to talk about?" asked Lily, who was looking intently at her ice cream.

* * *

"Are you crazy? I told you wouldn't be able to meet you today, I was meeting with the girls." hissed Marlene.

Sirius and Marlene had found the room where the extra copies of books were stored in. The stacks of books were charmed to stay atop each other. One could just lean on them as they'd lean on a wall without knocking the books off. The entire room was like a maze with walls made of books. Sirius and Marlene found a quiet corner at the very back of the room.

"So? Lily could keep James occupied for as long as she'd exist. We all know Hestia to be a loner and she'd leave probably in an hour, her boyfriend is taking her for the movies at three in the evening." Sirius told her, grinning. Marlene rolled her eyes, the corners of her mouth tugged at lips but before it turned into a full blown smile, Sirius caught her lips with his own and closed the gap between them. He pushed her into the nearest wall of books that he found. It wobbled a bit against their moving forms but stood its ground. Marlene wrapped her arms around Sirius's neck and her hands quickly found their way into his long black locks, which normally fell around his face quite royally, but right now they were a chaotic beauty, falling in front of his stormy grey eyes that peeked occasionally from behind them at Marlene's closed eyes and flushed face. He kissed the corner of her mouth and Marlene let out a small whimper. He could've sworn his heart jumped from its place into his mouth. He tried ignoring it, without admitting that it felt good. He gently brushed her hair behind her neck and left a trail of urgent kisses from left her collarbone to just below her left ear and kissed her jaw line, before reaching back to her agape mouth. He probed her tongue with his own and groaned when she responded by rolling her tongue around his. His stomach flipped a little. _This has been getting a bit out of hand_, Sirius noted, remembering the last time she had pushed her tongue in his mouth, he had felt his stomach flip, only a little lighter in intensity than today. He bit her lower lip before locking their lips, holding her as close as he could.

"Is someone in 'ere?" someone at the entrance growled.

They broke apart, Sirius's sweaty forehead resting on Marlene's, their eyes closed, breathing heavily. They remained like this for another minute, before Marlene muttered, "Let's get out of here."

* * *

"Um, I wanted to apologise." responded James, clearing his throat, straightening his back.

"You what? I don't think it's _you _who has to apologise." mumbled Lily. James gave her a quick confused glance before he interrupted her.

"No Evans. I was really rash with you the other day. You had only asked a simple question and I-"

"-I understand, Potter, why you were so defensive about it. Marlene told me abou-"

"-just snapped at you without a sparing a thought that maybe you were just trying to make conversati-"

"-your dad and that you've been pretty withdrawn this summer-"

"-I feel as if it's my responsibility to make you feel like you belong here." James stopped here when he saw Lily stop at his words.

"You f-feel responsible for m-me?" she stuttered.

"Yes." James admitted, "And not just me. It is or at least should be, the responsibility of anyone with a magical background, to welcome the muggle-borns and make them feel at home," he stated quite simply, "We completely neglect the legacy that muggle-borns bring with themselves from their world in a bid to entirely transform them into a witch or wizard and make them lose every connection they have with their world. This want of dissociating with the muggle world is the very root of this hate that's spreading. And even when they try to dissociate them from the muggle world there is this systemic way of ensuring that the muggle-borns never become an integral or an indispensable part of the wizarding world. This kind of leaves the muggle-borns hanging in the middle with nowhere to go. On top of that if people like me, shun the muggle-borns when they need answers, it'll only add to the problems. There _are _so many things we could take from your world. The telephone thing you told us about, it could make communicating so much easier than stepping in a load of owl shit in the owlery. My point being, that while I'm not in a position to make such amends as introducing telephones, the least I could do is tell you every information that I'm privy to by the virtue of having a magical background. If anyone has the right to ask me about my dad's work, it's you. You as a muggle-born have every right to question me back and forth about what is going on, how far along we are in containing the threats, how much harm is done, how much is anticipated, because honestly, The Daily Prophet is doing a crap job reporting even a flautist's event. So I'm sorry, that I snapped at you, I shouldn't have done that, and I promise I will never do that again. And if you'd like, you could ask me anything that you'd like to know about such business, anytime and I'll try to give you the best possible answer I could." James finished.

He had been looking at Lily looking at him with an unreadable expression on her face. When he had finished, Lily had shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She tucked the loose strand of her hair behind her ear and cleared her throat, sitting up straight, exactly how James had done before his little speech.

"That's really thoughtful of you, Potter." acknowledged Lily, with a small grateful smile. James let out a breath he didn't realise he was holding. He smiled shyly at Lily. Lily had, in the past five years never known him to be sensitive to such issues. She liked how upfront he was about discussing such a sensitive issue with a muggle-born. She sat there quite dumbfounded until she found her voice again.

"I wanted to apologise to you to-"

"Evans, you don't have to." James quickly cut in.

"No, Potter, I really do, I mean, as much as I'm grateful, I really am, that you put so much thought into this, but that doesn't mean I wasn't in the wrong questioning you like that, especially when our history has not exactly been civil." Lily finished, smiling at the last bit, as did James.

"It's okay, Evans. So anything you'd like to know?" asked James, casually licking his ice cream, his glasses had slid down to the tip of his nose and were dangerously close to being smothered by his ice cream, but he scrunched his nose in an attempt to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He failed miserably, sending his glasses further down. He had dirtied both of his hands in eating his ice cream like a kid. Lily reached across and pushed his glasses up. He looked a bit stunned by what Lily had done but smiled gratefully at her. "So any queries mademoiselle?", he asked again, with his lopsided grin, bringing him right back to his old self.

"How are you holding up?" Lily asked, carefully, knowing that when James said 'anything' he meant the Ministry and other stuff, not probing about in his private life.

James seemed a bit taken aback by her question. _Of all the things this ever-curious creature could bombard me questions about, she decides to ask about my mental health? _

"Not exactly your usual golden Potter boy at the moment, but I'll be alright." answered James casually, not divulging in too much information. _The last thing she needs is a teenage boy spewing his angst at her and whining about stuff he doesn't have control over. _She nodded not entirely convinced with his answer, but she didn't press him for details.

Just then Sirius and Marlene entered the shop and spotted the two of them.

"So you actually _were_ taking Evans for a date huh?" teased Sirius, smirking as he took a seat next to Lily while Marlene took a seat next to James.

"Yeah, it was going great until you two popped in." Lily replied. It was her turn to smirk as the colour drained from both, Sirius and James's, face. As soon as they noticed her rolling her eyes, they tried to return to their calm composure. Sirius succeeded, James struggled.

"Going soft on me Evans?" James asked, with his annoying smirk on his face, but Lily could see the tip of his ears turning pink.

"You wish Potter."

"Where's Jones?" James asked in an attempt to change he topic before he embarrassed himself more.

"Oh she met up with her boyfriend on the way here. They're going to watch some movie." explained Marlene. Marlene glanced at Sirius who smirked at her, and she scowled in return. They hadn't met up with Hestia after they got out of the book store instead they had found their usual snogging spot and had taken a stop there before coming to find James and Lily. Marlene just assumed that if it was already quarter to three, Hestia must have already left.

"Oh yeah, she did tell us, totally forgot about that." Lily remembered.

"Let's get going yeah?" Marlene asked, "My folks are expecting me home a bit early." she explained quickly. Everyone nodded.

"So when are you guys going to practice your new quidditch game plan?" Lily asked, remembering Marlene mentioning it.

"Our wha-" James started.

"You know our plan to beat the Ravenclaw team this year." Marlene quickly cut in, addressing James.

"We have a _plan?"_ James inquired, completely lost.

"Yeah the one you came up with." Lily pointed out.

"_I _came up with a game to beat the Ravenclaw team?" squeaked James.

Marlene kicked Sirius in the shins.

"Yeah the one you were talking about just yesterday!" Sirius wailed.

"Pads, I don't think I said anyth-"

"Oh don't mind him, it's just everything has been so stressful for him lately." cut in Sirius, apologetically.

"Yes they have been stressful but I know I didn't make a game pla-" James protested.

"You need your rest Prongs, come on now." Sirius quickly wrapped his arms around James, as if the latter was sick, and dragged him away from the girls.

* * *

Lily saw James struggling to get out of Sirius's protective grip but couldn't quite manage it. She shook her head at the two of them. She bid her farewell to Marlene and went home. Back home, things were quite as Petunia was out with Vernon and his friends. Her mother was in the kitchen, cooking and her dad was in his study. She went up to her bedroom and flopped down on her bed, face first. It hadn't been bad meeting with Potter at all. Has he always been this considerate? Lily quickly shook her head. She refused to let her brain gain pleasure out of overthinking about this day. This day in her mind was something fresh, something she hadn't experienced before and she'd like to keep it that way. _At least for __a __while. _Overthinking made everything stale. She didn't want this meeting of hers with Potter to turn stale with her numerous questions that her brain asks to examine and cross examine the witnesses. It was the first time she had experienced a pureblood talk so responsibly about the cause of the muggle-borns. On top of this a pureblood whom she had despised for the better half of her years at Hogwarts. Has he nev- _no! No over-thinking. _She rolled over to her back and closed her eyes. She smiled when she realised James _had_ gotten some ice cream smeared over his glasses but he didn't notice. She did.

* * *

**A/N: So the third chapter is here. It's a bit longer than the other two. Thank you so much for reading! ****Next update: next Saturday. Until then. Love you guys.**


	4. Rabbit's Hole

CHAPTER FOUR

"Will the two of you hurry up? Honestly you boys, we're not going to a _ball. _Why are you taking so long to get ready?" cried Euphemia.

"James is trying to lay his hair down flat." screamed Sirius as he tried to find his socks.

"And Sirius is trying to make his hair look glossier." James retorted, glaring at Sirius.

Neither of the two were trying to do what the other claimed. They had woken up five minutes before Euphemia had started calling for them. Sirius couldn't find one black, clean pair of socks, and James couldn't find his glasses.

"We'll leave without you two if you're not here in ten minutes." warned Euphemia and left to check on Mr. Potter who wasn't particularly punctual either.

Normally James would've taken up on the offer of being left behind. As tempting as not attending another Ministry official's funeral was, meeting Lily was a million times more tempting. Sirius's mind was trailing along the same line of thought, but while James _knew _he wanted to see Lily, Sirius wasn't quite sure why he was excited to just meet Marlene. They had a strictly friends with benefit relationship and while Marlene was, in fact, a friend, she wasn't as close to Sirius as she was to her other friends. The thought of Marlene not considering Sirius a close friend bothered Sirius a bit but he shrugged off the thought and finally found his (or James's) black socks.

The two of them rushed downstairs with two minutes to spare, and jogged to the fireplace where Euphemia and Fleamont were waiting for them.

"About time." muttered Euphemia, as she offered the floo powder to James and Sirius.

* * *

As James and Sirius reached the venue they thought they must be awfully early as next to no one was there. Mrs. Longbottom was talking to Mr. McKinnon. Sirius quickly spotted Marlene standing next to a tall, lanky, but good looking guy, and instinctively walked towards her. James, watching Sirius move purposefully, followed him, unsuspectingly. As they reached the spot where Marlene was standing, James spotted a mane of red hair towards the entrance and saw Lily and Alice carrying huge vases of flowers. They looked like they were doing just fine but James could see Lily's hair getting stuck in the leaves. He left Sirius's side and walked towards Lily leisurely.

"Need help their Ginger lion?" smirked James, as he watched her carrying the vase. As always she couldn't look more in control and more poise. Her only trouble was her hair getting stuck in the leaves. Lily rolled her eyes at him.

"I'm fine, thank you." she replied, her composure never once leaving her. James, nonetheless, moved to take the vase from her but Lily resisted.

"I said I'm fine." persisted Lily, holding onto the vase tighter, although she_ had_ been wishing to get some help the second she'd picked the damned vase up.

"I never said you're not, I'm just helping. It's okay to let someone help." replied James, his brows furrowed as if deep in thought. Lily looked at him. He did have a sincere look on his face and she really could use some help.

"Just this time." sighed Lily, as she handed over the heavy vase to James.

"Of course." James replied, lightly shaking his head.

Lily's hair was still stuck in the small leaves. James held the vase down to her height so she could untangle her hair. When she was done, he stood up straight.

"So where to?" he asked. Lily looked around for Alice. She had already left apparently.

"The man at the door said to take it to Augusta." replied Lily.

"Oh okay, this way then." James nodded towards the spot where he was earlier headed with Sirius.

As they approached Augusta, Lily looked at the people crowding around her. She could recognise Marlene's father, James's mother. Marlene was standing in between Sirius and a guy Lily couldn't recognise. Frank had his arms around his mother who looked positively shaken. Looking at Augusta's pale face made Lily shudder at the thought of what might have happened to make her look so scared. Everyone around was whispering comforting words to her, while James and Lily stood in the background trying to figure out what had happened.

At first James thought it might just be a fresh wave of pain that usually gets to bereaving people on the funeral. But then he noticed the absentees. His father wasn't here neither was Marlene's mother. Both of them were aurors. He quickly put the vase down at the nearest table and was about to walk towards Sirius to ask what was up but Lily caught him by the wrists.

"What's going on?" she asked, not taking her eyes off of Augusta. James had half a mind to tell her not to worry but then he remembered that he had in fact told her to ask him anything she wanted to know.

"I don't know," he replied earnestly, "come on, let's ask Sirius.".

With this they walked towards where Sirius was standing with Marlene.

"What's going on, Pads?" James asked, as he nodded his hello to Marlene and the guy he couldn't recognise.

"They just won't say anything!" huffed Sirius, "But I think I heard someone say mass abductions." he finished quietly.

James looked around. _That's why this place is so empty, _he thought.

Just then Alice came rushing towards the group.

"Alice what is up?" James asked with urgency in his voice.

"Death Eaters have managed to abduct every other Auror that was coming here through the floo network. Your dad and Marlene's mother are among the few that got spared somehow. Nine Aurors of your dad's department are abducted. A letter was just received at your dad's office about the ransom." Alice finished. She sounded out of breath.

"What's happening now?" asked Sirius.

"Mr. Potter and Mrs. McKinnon have left for the Ministry. The rest of the people," said Alice, as she pointed towards the small crowd, "are waiting for any instructions."

"We can help." James offered without a second thought.

"I know, I offered too. But these are our parents, they won't _let_ us help even over their dead bodies. They are way too stubborn. Mr. McKinnon said that they will help out the Aurors but not before they find a safe house for us."

Everyone was hanging on to every word Alice was saying until Mrs. Potter appeared.

"I'm assuming everyone knows what the situation is?" she asked, looking resignedly at Alice. The latter nodded. "Well in that case, I'm going to have to take you kids to a safe house. The Ministry is doing a sweep of the two safe houses that are closest to this place. Once we're in the clear we'll take you there." informed Euphemia. "And no ifs and buts about it." she quickly added sternly as she saw James and Sirius protesting.

"Evans might need to inform her parents that she might not make it home in time." James told his mother. She nodded solemnly.

"We might be able to find a telephone somewhere around here. Come with me." she beckoned Lily to join her. James quite instinctively followed his mother and Lily.

* * *

"You didn't have to come, James." remarked her mother, rolling her eyes.

"I just .. wanted to see a telephone." he replied, sheepishly. He did want to see a telephone, but that wasn't why he came with Lily and his mother. He couldn't bear the thought of letting Lily go anywhere alone after hearing what happened today. _She's not alone with your mum, _a little voice in his head reasoned. But it didn't matter whether she was alone or not, he didn't want to lose the sight of her today.

"We have nine Aurors abducted and you want to see a telephone?" asked Euphemia, incredulously.

James didn't reply. He looked over at Lily. Her brows were furrowed and she was twisting a stray strand of hair around her index finger. He wondered if she was scared. _Nah, the last thing this girl could be was scared. _She could be confused about everything maybe, he thought. _What's there to be confused about? _

They reached a dusty old office in a deserted corridor. Euphemia unlocked the door with her wand. As she opened the door, it creaked, sending the voice echoing down the corridor. The three of them walked into the office and lit their wands. Euphemia looked around and quickly spotted the telephone kept on a counter running along a wall. She pointed it and all three of them walked to it. Lily picked up the receiver and dialled the number to her house. James watched as she waited. _What's happen__ing? Why isn't she talking already? _He moved to the left of Lily to get a better look at her. She looked like she was waiting for something to happen, her index finger tapping on the counter. Suddenly, she stood up straight and cleared her throat.

"Hello. Petunia? Is dad home?" asked Lily, hoping the answer to be affirmative.

_Who's Petunia? _James thought.

"Yeah, put him on the phone, will you? Hi dad. I just called to .. no yeah everything is fine, yeah, I just wanted to tell you I might have to stay longer than I originally planne .. uh I don't really know."

Lily quickly turned towards Euphemia and mouthed, "How long?". Euphemia looked a bit troubled.

"You might have to stay over tonight." whispered Euphemia, a worried frown on her face. Lily raised her eyebrows.

"Uh, I might end up staying over tonight. No no, everything's good, Alice might stay over with Frank and she asked me if I could too and I said yes. Yeah, I'll take care, you do too. Okay, bye. Love you too."

Lily put down the receiver of the telephone down and nervously turned towards Euphemia, expecting to be scolded for lying to her dad. But instead she nodded at Lily understandably. The three of them left the office and walked back to the main hall where everyone else was.

* * *

As soon as they reached the hall, James saw his father rushing over to them.

"Where have you guys been?" inquired Fleamont.

"Lily here needed to call her parents about the situation." answered Euphemia, in a business like tone. Fleamont nodded.

"Alright, Euphemia, take these two to our place. Apparate." ordered Fleamont. He then turned to James and Lily. "Take whatever you might need, clothes, toothpaste, brush, books from there and then apparate with her", he pointed to Euphemia, "to our safe house. Don't do _anything _stupid, James. Keep an eye on him for me, will you?" he asked Lily, and she nodded.

"Where are the rest?" asked James as he looked around the deserted hall, the vase still at the odd place James had kept it.

"They already left for the safe house." replied Fleamont, hurriedly, "Euphemia, a word?" he asked, and both of James's parents left to go talk in a corner.

"Why did your dad ask us to get clothes and toothbrush?" asked Lily, worried she might have to stay over longer than she told her dad.

"You never really know how long it could take to get the hostages out." James answered, simply.

Lily nodded.

"Why did you lie?" asked James.

"About what?"

"About this," he replied, pointing around aimlessly, "to your dad."

"Oh, that. I don't thi-"

"Come on you two, it's time to leave." Euphemia cut in, as she rushed over to them looking even more worried, if that was possible.

"What's wrong?" asked James, worriedly, noticing her expression almost immediately.

"Nothing. Come on, hold my hand." she offered her hands to the two of them. They took her hand. There was pop. In the very next second they found themselves outside the Potter Mansion. The three of them almost jogged to the main entrance and didn't stop until they were inside the house.

"Quickly go get whatever you two might need. James get Lily a fresh toothbrush and a towel, you'll find it in the cabinet next to your bookshelf. I've to get some things too. Meet me back here in ten minutes."

James and Lily nodded and left for James's room. When they entered the room, James quickly grabbed a small bag and put two toothbrushes in it, he went inside the bathroom, grabbed a couple of razors, shaving cream, toothpaste, soap, towels. He opened his cupboard, and looked at his t-shirts. He grabbed two t-shirts and then closed the cupboard. He turned around and saw Lily looking at him, not sure what to do. He realised she was wearing a dress._ She'll need pyjamas if she had to change._ He turned around, opened the cupboard and grabbed a couple of pyjamas. He looked around to see if Lily might need something else. He then quickly went over to his bookshelf and wondered what book Lily would want to read. He picked up Quidditch Through The Ages and shoved it in his bag. He'd kept two brushes, two soaps, two towels, two t-shirts, two pyjamas, one book, he counted in his head. _What else could a girl need? _A moment later he decided they had everything they might need.

"Okay let's go." he said, finally.

Lily and James went downstairs and saw Euphemia waiting for them already. They grabbed Euphemia's hand and apparated to what looked like an abandoned street. It looked like a muggle street to Lily as she could see a few cars parked outside the houses. Euphemia quickly started moving towards a narrow alley, and the two teenagers followed her. When they almost reached the other end of the alley, Euphemia pointed her wand at the bricks on the floor and muttered "Rabbit's Hole". The bricks rearranged themselves to form a staircase leading to a basement.

"Go downstairs, walk straight until you see an iron gate. Say Rabbit's Hole, and the gate will open. You'll find everyone else there. I'll leave you here." she informed them, as she patted Lily on the head and pulled James into a hug.

"Be safe. Keep dad safe." James said as he broke away from the hug.

"I will. Now be good you two. And Lily, really, keep an eye on him and Sirius." pleaded Euphemia. Lily nodded, almost smiling and James rolled his eyes.

* * *

The two of them started going down the stairs. Soon they reached the iron gate Euphemia had told them about. It opened when they said the password. As the gate opened they saw a small hall with a few chairs and couches lying about, a small fireplace, a centre table in front of a loveseat. James could see Marlene was sitting with the strange guy on a round table and Sirius was sitting across from them, nodding curtly occasionally. Frank and Alice were sitting together in front of the fireplace on the loveseat, whispering something among themselves.

As James and Lily entered the room, Sirius beckoned them over to the table. He looked mildly relieved. James and Lily walked over to the table. Lily sat down between Sirius and Marlene and James sat down between Sirius and the strange guy. _Who _is _this guy? _James wondered irritatingly.

"James, Lily this is Liam Bolte. He's the son of my mother's childhood friend. Liam, this is Lily Evans and James Potter, my friends." introduced Marlene.

Liam was a good looking fellow. He had dark brown hair, black eyes, a lean body. His gestures seemed as if they were flowing through water. His face almost always looked extremely attentive and patient. Tan lines were quite evident around his collar bones. When he smiled his lips would extend almost as if from one ear to the other. He had quite a sharp laugh that apparently seemed to be getting on Sirius's nerves.

"Hi." Lily and James, chorused.

"Hey. So you guys go to Hogwarts too?" asked Liam, in a confident voice.

"Yeah we do." Lily replied.

"Where do you go to school?" asked James, curiously.

"Ilvermony, it's in North Eastern America, very fancy apparently." answered a clearly very irritated Sirius, before Liam could even open his mouth.

Marlene laughed nervously while Liam smiled, resignation evident in his eyes.

"Yes, that's where." concurred Liam.

"Wow, cool." said James, not exactly knowing how to tackle this situation. Usually Remus was the one with tact in such situations, James mostly joined in with Sirius.

"Did you come here for the summers?" Lily asked, trying to diffuse the situation. James thanked her internally.

"And got this gorgeous tan in London? No, darling." smirked Liam. James could see why Sirius was practically itching with irritation. "My dad had to be transferred from the MACUSA to the Ministry to attend to some urgent matter. We were in Spain when he was asked to immediately leave for here. Apparently we'll have to stay for more than one month than was originally planned. I'll be transferred to Hogwarts for one term. They might extend it, I don't really know."

"Oh." That was all Lily could say.

"Your dad is an Auror?" asked James.

"Yeah. He's a special division Auror. Deals specifically in Dark Arts crime. He had a fast track department opened up in the MACUSA. Took the man three yea-"

"Does anyone want anything to eat or drink?" cut in Sirius, almost shouting, impatience and irritation etched onto every line on his face. Frank and Alice looked up from their place.

"I'm starving." confessed Marlene, rubbing her grumbling stomach.

"I'll get something to eat." said Frank getting up from his spot.

"From where?" Lily asked, confused.

"There's a storeroom in the basement with food and drinks."

"There's a basement in this basement?" asked Lily, incredulously.

"Yeep," Frank replied as he started moving towards the iron gate, "stay put. Don't do anything stupid."

"Yes mommy." responded Sirius, with a cheeky smile.

As soon as Frank left Alice took a chair and brought it to the table where the rest of them were sitting. She scooted in between James and Sirius. James shifted his chair a bit to his left. He was now sitting right in front of Lily.

"Did your mother tell you anything else?" asked Alice, looking at James, who simply shook his head.

James closed his eyes and raised his head towards the ceiling, his arms folded. He wondered what his parents were doing right now._ Were they already face to face with the death eaters? Or were they negotiating through other means? _The fact that all his friends were here with him, that Lily was here with him, did keep him distracted. He was supposed to look out for his friends, this alone made him not lose his composure, but having _both _of his parents out there, in open confrontation with Death Eaters, made him weary with tension. He sat up straight and opened his eyes and was greeted with Lily's emerald eyes fixed on him. James's stomach dropped. He wondered what it would like to see her eyes watching him every time he opened his own. Lily quickly looked away, but it was too late. James had already seen her watching him, with that unmistakable pensive expression of Lily's that he knew all too well.

"See something you like, Evans?" smirked James, his eyes twinkling.

Lily scoffed and rolled her eyes. James studied her as she sighed and rested her elbow on the table and her chin on the palm of her hand and looked around, bored. She looked breathtaking. _She _always _looks breathtaking. _She'd worn a black dress, sombre enough to be worn to a funeral. It hugged her curves smoothly and ended just above her knees. She had her hair down in the morning but now she'd tied them up in a ponytail. Her eyes appeared bigger when she tied her hair, noted James. She looked tired as she tried concentrating on what everyone was saying. Her eyes hopped from person to person lazily. He knew she didn't like gossiping. He wondered if she'll sit all straight and attentive if someone started talking about MACUSA or the Ministry. He smiled at the thought all the while not taking his eyes off her.

"See something you like, Potter?" jested Lily. James, however, wasn't phased.

"Oh Evans, you've no idea just how much." replied James, leaning back in his chair bringing his hands behind his head, gazing at her with a lazy crooked smile playing on his lips.

Lily shook her head lightly, trying to ignore the questioning glances she received from Liam.

"I can't sit in this suit any longer. I'm gonna go take a shower," announced James, "care to join me, Evans?" he added, almost as if he didn't care for an answer, which he was positive he wouldn't receive.

"In your dreams, Potter."

"Don't go there, Evans." smirked James, but before he could see Lily gaping at him, he quickly ran towards the bathroom for the fear of getting hexed by the witch in question.

* * *

James got out of the shower in less than ten minutes, drying his hair with his towel, dripping water everywhere. Looking at him made Lily want to take a shower. She too got up and walked towards the bathroom. Everyone was too absorbed in Liam and his school in North America that they didn't notice her leaving. She walked in the bathroom, locked the door, took off her clothes and stepped under the shower. As soon as the warm water hit her face she sighed. She didn't quite understand some of the things. _How did the Death Eaters abduct people through the floo network? Should I ask Potter? No. He's been way too flirty today. I really shouldn't talk to him civilly, he doesn't deserve it. The moment I talk to him politely, he's ready to jump on any occasion to flirt with me. He did look good today though. _Lily opened her eyes at this thought. She frowned as she reached for the knob to turn off the shower. He was a good looking guy, Lily had never denied that. Quite often some random group of girls would give her death stares right after Potter's failed attempt at flirting with her. She had overheard some Ravenclaw girls talking about her something along the lines of "Who does she think she is? He could do so much better than a ginger". Lily never particularly paid attention to such gossip, but she did feel good, just sometimes, when Potter would start flirting with her, oddly enough very much in the presence of those Ravenclaws. Now Lily would deny feeling good about Potter giving too much attention to her should one take out those annoying girls out of the equation. Nevertheless, on her bad days, Lily noticed how he wouldn't bug her. He wouldn't poke her about going out with him, quite unlike Sev- _no don't go there. _

She covered her face in her hands and took a deep breath. When she opened her eyes she looked around for a towel, and realised there wasn't one. Panicked, she then remembered Potter had packed two towels and groaned that she'll have to ask him for a towel. She opened the door, her body hiding behind the door, with her head stuck out from the small cavity where the door opened.

"Potter?" she called and everyone turned around to look at her. Water from her dripping hair was running all over her eyes, as she tried to keep them open.

"Yes Evans?" James asked innocently.

"Do you have a spare towel?"

"I do, as a matter of fact. And before you ask I have pyjamas and my quidditch jersey for you." he replied, smiling devilishly.

"I'd rather sit in a towel than wear anything with your name on it." scoffed Lily, her patience running thin.

"Honestly, Evans, I'd rather you sit in a towel too-"

"Just give me the damn clothes." thundered Lily, as she heard James chuckling in the background. He came over to the door and Lily pulled her head inside, sticking her hand out to grab the clothes. She felt James putting the clothes and the towel in her hand but didn't let go them before adding, "You sure you don't want me to join you?" humour evident in his voice.

"Shove off Potter." hissed Lily as she snatched the clothes from James, and quickly closed the door behind her.

She dried herself and wrapped her hair in the towel, and started dressing up. As soon as Lily wore the pyjamas she realised just how short she was compared to James. She rolled the ends of the pyjamas so she wouldn't trip over them. She then slid into James's quidditch jersey. She noticed the jersey was too small for James and realised that it was the jersey from their fourth year. He might have brought it for her specifically so it could fit her. She didn't know how to react to this thoughtfulness. _He's being too thoughtful lately._ The jersey still didn't fit her and reached just above the middle of her thigh. She sighed after looking down at herself, rolled her hair out of the towel. They were damp and no more dripping. She tossed them over her shoulders and opened the door. She gasped in surprise as she found James standing right outside the door and apparently waiting for her.

"Wow, you really are very small." he remarked, as he looked at the his jersey's neck hole almost hanging down from one of her shoulders._ Too beautiful to handle,_ he thought. Before Lily could reply he held out his hand for the damp towel, which Lily gave to him, and disappeared.

Lily went over to sit with the rest of the people. Marlene and Liam were talking, Sirius was glowering at Liam, Alice was sleeping in the loveseat sofa where she and Frank were earlier sittin- _wait where's Frank? _Lily quickly looked around. She did a head count. _Potter, Black, Marlene, Alice, me, Liam, no Frank. _She looked around again, just to be sure.

"Black? Didn't Frank come back from the basement?" Lily inquired, worriedly, still looking around, hoping she is wrong. For some reason this didn't look right.

"No I don't think he did." replied Sirius, his voice suddenly growing very deep. He got up from his chair and walked over to where James was rummaging around in his bag. They talked a bit after which Sirius announced that they were going to look for Frank in the basement.

"I'm coming too." Lily quickly made to move.

"We'll be fine, Evans." Sirius rolled his eyes at her.

"I know, I'm still coming." replied Lily, definitively and started towards the iron gate.

The three of them moved towards the dark staircase leading further down. They lit their wands as they walked along the narrow corridor leading to another door. This one didn't need a password. Lily turned the knob of the door handle and opened the door. As they entered the room, their wands lit the room around them. It looked like a wine cellar. There were wooden boxes filled with some kind of bottles. On Lily's right she could see a huge metal cupboard. She reached out to open it. The handle was cold. As she opened the door of the metal cabinet she heard someone groan. She looked around and saw a body on the floor, lying in a foetus position. She quickly hurried over, vaguely aware of James following in her step, crouched down next to the body and brought her wand closer to the body's face to get a clear look. Her heart was thumping as she knew who might be but she needed to be sure. As the light hit the face of the body, she gasped. It was Frank.

* * *

**A/N: So, for one, I owe an apology. I'm a week late. I had assignments to submit and I hope this never happens again. Also be assured I'll never leave this or any other fic incomplete. I hate it when writers do that. ****Two,**** thank you so much for the review Th34DerelictMuse. ****I read the ****3rd**** chapter again after having read your review and I have to say, the 'head-hopping' makes everything look all over the place. Since I had already written this chapter I couldn't exactly ****put your notes to use in this chapter however I did try to edit it ****a bit accordingly,, ****I hope this chapter isn't too clustered with thoughts and head spaces****. ****If it is, do let me know.**** Anyway thanks for reading you guys. Leave a review? Next update: ****22****nd**** March. Until then. Love ya guys.**


	5. Cursed Objects

Chapter Five

Frank's face and his limp body posed a number of questions in Lily's mind. _Was someone in here? Are they still in here? Were they here before everyone arrived or __did they come __after? How'd they get in here? Did someone overhear Mrs. Potter telling us the password? Or was there a breach in the Ministry? _She turned around quickly to find James and Sirius equally lost in thought. James stood up and motioned Sirius to quietly cover James's back as the two of them walked around the cellar, surveying the place. Lily sat there in the dark with only her wand to light her immediate surroundings. She looked down at Frank and pressed two fingers to his temple. His pulse was weak and his skin was growing cold. She then looked around for any sign of a duel that might have taken place. There were none. The place looked almost untouched and still. She then looked for any signs of curses that might have left any mark on his body. His sleeves were rolled up and his shirt was open at the collar. She pointed her wand at his neck to see clearly, but his neck was devoid of any marks. She then pointed her wand at his right hand and again, _nothing._ She however did find his wand lying around in close proximity. She reached out and grabbed it. She moved to his left hand and saw the palm of his hand had turned a deep shade of blue which would look almost black if such bright light coming from her wand wasn't pointing directly at it. Moving towards the fingers the blue turned lighter and lighter. The veins below his wrists were painfully evident as if almost ready to pop out any moment. She remembered Severus had once asked her how a person who was locked up alone in his house for twenty four hours could have died an unnatural death without the murderer showing up in his presence. He had felt so proud telling her something she didn't know when he explained to her that the murderer could've planted an object cursed with dark magic in the victim's house and had to just wait for the guy to touch the object. She had been stunned and Severus had only halfheartedly feigned disgust with such an act. She brought herself back to reality and looked around for whatever he could've touched that might've been cursed.

"I don't get it, there's no one in here."

Lily jumped at the voice of a frustrated Sirius.

"There wasn't anyone here to begin with. He touched an object cursed with dark magic. Look." said Lily as she pointed to Frank's palm. James and Sirius rushed to her side and crouched down to look at the palm.

"We've already sent a patronus to my mother telling her about this, I hope they bring a healer with them." said James as he looked around for the same object Lily was looking for. Lily flashed her wand under one of the racks next to Frank's body and could make out something like a tray lying under it.

"I think that is what Frank touched." she remarked, pointing towards the object. James who was sitting next to her made a move to grope around under the rack. Lily and Sirius both caught his arm.

"Do you have a death wish? Don't touch it with your bare hands." said Sirius.

James lit his wand and pushed his hand under the rack in an attempt to prod the object on the other side of the rack. When he had successfully pushed the object, the three of them rushed to the other side to see the object. It was a tray. It looked really old, and extremely out of place with the cellar. The three of them jumped at the sound of people approaching and had their wands ready. But when the door to the cellar opened, three tall figures appeared, one of whom was James's mother. She was the only one that the three teenagers recognised.

"Where's the boy?" asked a really old weary looking man. He was tall, had bushy eyebrows, and although his eyes looked tired, they were filled with genuine concern.

"Here." said James as he took the three new comers towards the side of the rack where Frank was lying.

"What had happened?" the old man asked, who Lily guessed to be a healer, because the moment he set his eyes on the limp body, he got down and conducted a normal tests to know if Frank was still alive.

"It had been almost 30-40 minutes when Frank had left to get some snacks. When we realised this we rushed here and saw him lying like this. Evans thinks, it happened because he touched a cursed object. We may have also found that object. It's on the other side of this rack." Sirius explained.

"How do you know about all of this Miss Evans?" the third strange man asked. Lily looked at him ready to explain, but the suspicious glance that she received from the man made her nervous.

"A friend told me." she answered, hoping the man won't press for details, because she wouldn't trust herself to tell the truth if he asked for the name of that friend. Lily wondered if sometime in the future she'll be able to face the truth about Severus without feeling that sharp pain in her chest and tears pickling her eyes.

"Some friend you must have there." the man said in a cold, harsh voice, and while Lily looked him square in the eyes as he said this, she could feel the insides of her body squirming with unrest.

Mrs. Potter and the man rounded the corner of the rack to inspect the tray. Lily turned around to see the healer waving his wand, with golden wisps coming out of it, around Frank's forearm as if tying bandages.

"That should temporarily stop the curse from spreading. We need to take him to St. Mungo's right away."

"We have urgent business to attend to at the Ministry, you should go ahead with Frank. We'll send his mother to St. Mungo's as soon as we reach the Ministry." said Mrs. Potter.

"Very well then." said the healer, as he levitated Frank's body towards the exit.

"Who found Frank?" asked Mrs. Potter.

"We all did." Sirius replied.

"Very well. You three will have to come to the Ministry with us. We've to take your statements." the strange man stated. Up until now Lily hadn't noticed that the guy had an accent. Much like Liam. Realisation hit her as they moved upstairs and light hit everyone's faces. Lily looked at the guy with the American accent, who was walking right in front of her. He had the same dark brown hair as Liam, almost the same body built, save for the paunch that middle aged men develop, however he seemed fit for his age, and was sharply dressed. As they reached the iron gate, Mrs Potter stopped them all.

"Wait here, I'll inform the rest of the kids. We'll leave then." she said. Everyone nodded as she disappeared behind the door after having said the password.

"Are you Liam's father?" asked Lily, before she could control herself. She received a nod in response to her question._ He isn't much of a talker, quite unlike his son. _

About after a minute of waiting, Mrs. Potter appeared and everyone shuffled towards the exit. As soon as they were out, they apparated to the Ministry. Lily had never been to the Ministry. As soon as they landed, Lily's eyes were quickly moving from one thing to the other, trying to memorise everything in just one go. She occasionally slowed down to read something and would often get bumped by people around her, who for some reasons seemed to be in a hurry. Lily had never been around so many witches and wizards who were running around with a purpose. The only gatherings of wizards she had attended were either parties or Hogwarts. She had for some reason assumed that wizards always walk around as if they have all the time in the world. She realised she hadn't even been to Gringotts. Alice or Marlene would always get her muggle currency exchanged because the only time she had been there before starting her first year, she hadn't understood a word the goblin had said, neither did her dad know how to deal with magic people. The event had scarred her with that angry goblin shouting something about ignorance and lack of respect. As they reached the level of Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Lily noticed that there was much less hustle bustle here than the entrance.

"I remember it being a lot different than it looks now." remarked James.

"Come on, we need to get your statements. One by one. We'll start with you Miss Evans, then Mr. Potter and then Mr. Black." stated Mr. Bolte, in a very business like tone. As they reached a waiting area, Mr. Bolte pointed Lily towards a door.

"You'll find a junior Auror in there. He'll take your statement." he informed her. His very voice made Lily nervous. She nodded quietly and walked towards the door.

"She's been in there way too long!" said James, huffing in frustration.

"Calm down mate. You know she could explain things to no end." said Sirius in a bored voice.

"Did you see how that jerk was talking to her?" asked James referring to Bolte.

"Yeah, and his son is just a verbose counterpart of that jerk." remarked Sirius, wondering what Marlene and Liam must be doing right now.

"Do you think it was Snape who told her about the cursed objects?" asked James

"Do you think it could be Marlene or Alice? Of course it was that slimy git. If I didn't know better, I'd say he was the one to plant that tray to curse you or me." scoffed Sirius.

James shook his legs anxiously. Reason told him it had only been fifteen minutes. But he couldn't relax for the life of him. Being here in the Ministry, in his dad's department, his worry for Lily was more or less an escape from thinking about, the time when he was fourteen and had first visited the Ministry and how normal things were back then. There had been so many people around in the same level where he was waiting. The place was crawling with people. The department had been delighted to meet the young Mr. Potter. He had sneaked chocolate frogs from the desk of an intern of the department because he was really mean. He remembered that intern had said something about nepotism and crown prince. He wondered if he got a job in the Ministry.

At that moment the door opened and Lily stepped out, followed by a tall, blond guy, whom James recognised almost immediately, as anger boiled inside of him. It was the same intern that James had met back when he had visited the Ministry. He was standing too close to Lily. Lily on the other hand was trying to move away from his towering figure, uncomfortably.

"If there's any proble-" the guy was cut off as he noticed someone striding towards Lily and him.

"Well if it isn't your boyfriend Miss Evans." the junior Auror remarked, lazily looking at a fuming James.

"He's not my boyfriend." Lily corrected him quickly

"You gotta do better than wear his jersey screaming Potter's girl, if you want to really keep it a secret."

"I'm sorry to interrupt your pathetic attempts at flirting. If you're quite done I hope you'd be able to take out some time for the Ministry business, if it's not too much trouble to ask." James replied trying to control his anger.

"Ah, of course, the son of the Head of the Department. Very impressive. Suits you. I must say I never thought I'd say this but puberty sure was kind to you. And of course you scored yourself pretty chic." the junior Auror flashed Lily a toothy grin. James gripped his wand tight, and glanced at Lily, and saw her looking at him nervously, lightly shaking her head, urging him to not create a scene. He hadn't noticed up until now, but Sirius had been standing behind him. James did realise the consequences. His mother works in a different department, all the senior Aurors of this department had left to take care of the current situation leaving the only figure of authority here this smug junior Auror or at best the Bolte guy. James realised if he'd punch the Junior auror, it'll only prove his point about James being a spoiled pureblood, everything happening at his behest. He decided he wasn't ready to give this guy the satisfaction.

"And I'm sorry that you never had the pleasure to meet puberty." said James, with a straight face, as he moved between Lily and the auror to enter the room. On entering the room his eyes fell on the name plate kept on the table. _Mr. __Francis Kane, Junior Auror. _He sat down and soon was joined by Francis. James relayed the incidents starting from when they received the information regarding the abductions, up until when they found Frank's body and the arrival of his mother, Mr. Bolte and the healer. When he was done, Francis repeated whatever he had written down, and asked James for his signature. James left before Francis could utter another word.

"Go ahead Pads, get this done with." said James, as he took the seat next to Lily that Sirius vacated.

"Yours was pretty quick." Lily remarked.

"What were you doing in there? What took _you _so long?" asked James curiously.

"He'd barely let me finish a sentence! He kept cross questioning me about everything I said. Didn't he do that to you?"

"No. I just told him what happened. They are only supposed to take your statements. If your statements don't concur with the main story, _then_ you're called for questioning." explained James, "He probably just wanted to keep you in longer to irk me."

"How do you know him?"

"I came here when I was in the third year. He was an intern then. Spilled the same shit he said today. Pulled some nasty comments about things being easy for me because I was the HoD's son, stuff like that. I nicked all of his chocolate frogs later that day." said James with a mischievous smile.

"You really are a character." sighed Lily as she closed her eyes, gently resting her head on the wall behind her.

James looked over at her. She looked really pretty in his jersey. Her hair had come loose from her ponytail and there were still a hint of pink left on her lips from her lip gloss earlier today. Her brows furrowed just a little and he knew she was going to open her eyes. He quickly looked away. She did open her eyes and looked around.

"Was it Snape who told you about the cursed objects?" asked James, not looking at Lily.

"Yeah." said Lily, in a small voice.

James nodded quietly.

"What?" Lily asked, looking at him curiously.

"What what? I didn't say anything." defended James.

"Yeah, I noticed. It's quite uncharacteristic of you to do that."

"I just didn't want to prod you about it."

"We were asking each other riddles. Harmless riddles mind you. At least I was. Then he asked how one can kill a person without even coming in contact with them. He didn't even look sorry when I asked him how he knew." said Lily, looking down at here hands. James shifted in his seat, uncomfortably, not knowing how to respond to this. He wasn't sure if Lily wanted him to say something.

"People joke around with their friends all the time like this. If I had to kill Remus, I'll poison one of his chocolates. He loves them." said James trying to comfort her although he wasn't quite sure if people joked about killing other people, "You were probably the only friend he felt comfortable sharing that information."

"Please Potter, he had plenty of friends to joke about that stuff. That was all those friends of his did all the time. Joke about killing and torturing people. And even if you do joke about how you'll kill Remus, there's still that endearing factor you have, of you knowing how Remus loves chocolate and would eat a poisoned one too. Severus was amazed only by the very idea of being able to kill someone without being caught. I've been so blind!" said Lily, her hands over her forehead, her eyes closed, head back against the wall. James could tell by the look on her face she was struggling to decide if she should say more. She'd open her eyes, and then close them again.

"When I'd confront him about him hanging around with guys who whispered "mudblood" when I'd pass them, he would just say, "It doesn't matter, they're just some fanatics." or "You shouldn't be bothered with such bullies, you're top in class". He has always been so dismissive. Sometimes he just wouldn't say anything and would tell me to never talk to him again if that's the only thing I wanted to talk about. So I stopped asking." Lily paused, and then almost as an afterthought, she added, "I should've asked, could've saved myself a lot of pain and humiliation." she finished, as she let out a resigned sigh.

"But then you would've blamed yourself for having ruined a friendship of so many years over a personal issue. And if Snape had called you a, you know what, after you had broken off with him, you'd blame yourself even more thinking he may have developed that hate after your friendship got done with."

"Or I could've talked him out of it while we were still friends."

"Evans, you're one of the most convincing, kind hearted people I know, if you yourself being a muggle-born, couldn't even begin a conversation with Snape because he didn't want you to _and _on top of that used your friendship with him as leverage, then he was already lost to the other side. He was just stalling things." said James. This was perhaps the only thing he'd said all day that he was sure of and made any sense to him. He saw Lily as she contemplated what he had said. Her brows were ever so lightly knitted together and her lips were pursed. She nodded slightly.

"I guess, yeah." Lily replied.

James sat back as he heard her response. He was suddenly reminded of the time when in their second year Lily had been crying about something at 2am in the common room. He had asked her why was she crying but she just couldn't get the words out of her mouth because of the hiccups. James had put an arm around her shoulder and had told her "It'll be alright." over a hundred times until she had calmed down and said, "It'll never be alright." He still didn't know what it was all about. And Lily had never mentioned that night ever again. He wondered if she ever thought about that night. James thought about it almost every time he'd look at Lily being quiet.

Sirius took that moment to return to the two of them. He squished himself on the corner where James was sitting, pushing the latter into Lily's direction.

"You're getting fat, Pads."

"You're practically a cow." retorted Sirius, elbowing James in the ribs.

"I think we're done here." replied James as he stood up from his spot, "We should go find my mum."

"Yeah." Sirius nodded.

The three of them followed to the elevator. As soon the doors to the elevator opened, Fleamont followed by nearly twelve to thirteen other people walked out. James let out a surprise breath as he hugged his father, almost the second he saw him.

"Are you okay? Is everyone okay? Did anyone get hurt?" he fired the questions at his father.

"Sorry people, you guys go ahead, my son never really grew up after he was twelve years old. I still have to answer all his questions when I get back from work." said Fleamont, addressing the people standing behind him. James flushed at this. Lily and Sirius were standing close behind him.

"We're all good, nobody's hurt, except for Augusta's boy, we even got five death eaters in custody although two still managed to escape. If anything, this has been a good day as compared to the last five months." said Fleamont with a weak smile.

"Where's mum?" asked James.

"She has gone to get the other kids." replied Fleamont. James nodded.

"Can we go see Frank?" asked Lily from behind James.

"I'd suggest against it. He won't be conscious anytime soon, given his condition, and Augusta is in no shape to entertain anyone. It's been some day for her." said Fleamont, solemnly. Lily nodded.

"Is it safe to go home now?"

"Yeah it is. It's gonna be long long day, well whatever is left of the day. We might need to spend the night here too. There are five death eaters to question. Euphemia will get you all home. Until then let's wait for her in my office." said Fleamont.

The three of them nodded and followed Fleamont as he walked to his office. As they entered the office they saw Euphemia talking with Liam's father.

"There you kids are. We looked for you in the waiting room but you weren't there."

"We were coming to your office but ran into dad." replied James.

"Right, let's get everyone home. Lily, I'll drop you off first. Just tell me your address." said Euphemia, as she started walking towards the exit. James felt a little disheartened as Lily started walking towards the exit too, but his heart jumped when she turned around.

"Bye Potter, Black." said Lily.

"Bye, Evans" said Black.

"B- yeah, bye, bye." stuttered James, not at all expecting a parting farewell from Lily.

She turned around and left with his mother.

Later that day in, laying in his bed, James would replay that day's every event, a hundred times through his mind, unaware that Lily would also be doing the same especially when she finds a small note in the pocket of James's sweatpants. The note looked like it had been in the pocket while the pants were washed because the ink and the paper looked frayed. But Lily was quite sure she could make out a snitch drawn on it with the letter L.E. inscribed inside the snitch.

**A/N: So sorry for the late update but my WiFi had been a bit scratchy lately. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Thanks for reading! **


	6. A Freak Show

Chapter Six

As always Lily reached the King's Cross Station twenty minutes before the departure. Her parents had helped her load her trunk in an empty compartment and were now standing with her on the platform nine and three quarters, exchanging some last minute words. Petunia, Lily's sister stood just an inch away from her family, occasionally muttering "freaks" under her breath, a painful expression etched on her scrawny face.

"It gets so lonely without you. Do write to us when you reach." said Rose, Lily's mother.

"I will mum. I'll miss you all so much." replied Lily, her voice wavering slightly. She hated saying goodbyes to her family.

"Are you guys quite done? Can we just go already? This whole place is a freak show." said an irritated Petunia who had just had a charmed paper plane flew past her ear. Lily's father had spent days trying to convince her to come with them to see off Lily. He tried to make it seem as if Petunia was coming of her own will, but Petunia had cornered Lily to tell her that she had only agreed to come because their father had in return promised to let Petunia stay over at Vernon's. Lily hadn't said anything. She knew how much Petunia hated coming here to the station to see Lily off. When they were young Petunia wasn't scared to hide the fact that she was upset because of Lily leaving. But over the years, Petunia had grown out of her childlike innocence and had started masking her sadness with anger and ultimately disgust for the wizardkind. Before Lily could say something to Petunia, a tall figure hunched over a trolley came crashing into the place where Lily and her family stood. The owl's cage on the trolley had slid off and was now rolling towards the end of the platform where the train was stationed. Lily quickly went over to get the owl's cage before it could roll off and get stuck between the train and the platform's edge. The owl was screeching angrily and was flapping its wings madly. Just as she was returning to where her family stood she noticed another boy had fallen on top of the first one, his trolley and belongings, too, lay askew, as they struggled to get up. No sooner did they get up that Lily realised who it was. She walked over to them with firm steps.

"What on earth do you think you're doing Potter, ramming your way into where my family is standing?" hissed Lily, dropping the owl on James's trolley which her father had pulled up from the ground. The owl too, screeched indignantly.

James's eyes grew wide as he looked from Lily to the two middle aged figures, standing next to her.

"Relax Evans, someone pushed us from behind when we were inside the barrier." replied Sirius the moment he realised James was too tongue tied to talk because of Lily's parents.

"You're James Potter?" asked Rose.

"Yeah .. I mean yes ma'am." answered a very flustered James, his hand shooting up to his hair, but for the first time not to ruffle it, but to flatten it.

"We've heard a lot about you." said Rose.

"Really?" asked James, his eyes growing wide with surprise, much to the horror of Lily whose eyes were just as wide but with panic.

"Nothing good though." said Lily's father, a twinkle in his eyes, but James couldn't have looked any more guilty than he did at the moment.

"I'm not surprised. I feel sorry for your daughter that she has to put with my son's antics throughout the year. She's a lovely girl." said James's mother, who had appeared at the scene after Sirius and had noticed the exchange between them.

"I'm sorry, I should introduce myself. I'm Euphemia Potter, James's mother." said Euphemia as she shook Lily's parents' hand.

"I'm Rose, this is John my husband, and Petunia my eldest daughter." replied a smiling Rose. To Lily's surprise and relief Petunia shook Mrs. Potter's hand and even managed a small smile even if it looked like a grimace.

Euphemia and Lily's parents talked until there were only five minutes left for the train to leave. Lily noticed James's father hadn't come to see him off. James, Sirius and Lily were standing there awkwardly and couldn't have thanked the blowing horn of the train enough which meant the disbanding of their little get together. Petunia all this while had stood scoffing at people using their wands and Lily had hoped no one would notice just how unaproving her sister was of the wizardkind. Lily however it seemed was out of luck today. When it was time to say goodbyes, Lily turned to Petunia after having said goodbye to her parents and Mrs. Potter.

"I'll see you on Christmas, Tuney." said Lily with a hopeful smile.

"I hope to God you don't."

Petunia's ice cold voice washed over Lily and she stood frozen to the ground as did everyone around her.

"PETUNIA!" roared her father, fuming.

"What dad?! She's a freak! She runs off to this school of freaks, for an entire year, she doesn't care about us. She doesn't call us and expects me to _write _to her as if we're living in our grandparents' time. And to top it all off we can't post the letter like a normal person. No. We've got to deal with freak birds instead. I'm better off staying away from her and her kind." sneered Petunia.

A lot many people who had been waving at their kids had turned around to see what the fiasco was. It took Lily strength from every fibre of her being to turn away from where everyone stood and walk towards the train. Her vision was blurred because of the tears pricking at the back of her eye. She was vaguely aware of people turning around to look at her as Petunia kept screaming something at her. She hurried to board the train and almost stumbled. A girl who couldn't have been older than 13 gave Lily a hand and smiled at her kindly. Whatever was holding her from crying couldn't hold off any longer. As she took the little girl's hand to lightly hoist herself up she let out a small sob. She muttered a quick thank you and steered the girl away from the door saying it was dangerous to stand there. She held her head down as tears spilled down her cheeks as she entered the train still holding the girl's hand. The girl was looking at her curiously but didn't ask her anything. She found the carriage with her friends and unsure whether to say goodbye or not, she waved at Lily and quickly ran off inside her compartment. Her head still down Lily walked towards the compartment where her trunk was kept but it was already occupied by Marlene and Hestia. She quickly moved ahead and at the other end of the train she found an empty compartment which was labelled 'Out of Order'. There were no seats there but Lily sank down to the floor and braced her knees as she started crying, her body shaking. This year had taken an emotional toll on her. Petunia hadn't spoken to Lily at all unless it was absolutely necessary. Most of the time Petunia would run off to her boyfriend, who it had seemed to Lily was more or less fueling Petunia's feelings of hatred towards Lily. Then there was Severus, who would exploit every opportunity he'd get to sneer at Petunia and tell Lily how she was better off without her and the muggles who would all call Lily a freak if they got to know Lily was a witch. But at the end of it all Severus had called her a mudblood. Lily drifted off to sleep as she remembered that day in her second year when she had been called a mudblood. She'd asked Severus what it meant. He had told her how it was the worst thing one could call someone and how Lily was much more clever than the combined student population that might call her a mudblood.

* * *

Marlene hadn't seen Sirius around anywhere. She knew he was always late for the train but you could see the marauders roaming around the length of the train at least a hundred times before they reached school. He hadn't even come around to meet her. _Why should he? It's not like he's your boyfriend. _A voice scoffed inside her head.

It was true. Sirius wasn't her boyfriend. Last year had been rough. She had caught her boyfriend of seven months, John Dawlish, cheating on her a few months before they started with their OWLs. She hadn't been, what one could call, happy in her relationship but it had kept her mind off all the stress of the OWLs. Before she knew, she had already been with him for seven months. They hadn't been able to meet a lot because of the OWLs and Marlene wondered if that was why they drifted apart. The heat between them seemed to have simmered down after their first fight. It had been over Sirius. Marlene had been paired with Sirius in Potions last year. Sirius and Marlene had gotten off really well. Their dislike for Slytherins was mutual and so was their desire to prank them in their Potions class. They would spend time in library planning pranks under pretense of studying. The fact that Sirius and Marlene were also on the Quidditch team didn't help her case when John confronted her about Sirius. Marlene would probably not deny that she couldn't give John much time. She succumbed to John's accusations of not paying him much attention without realising that John was just as much at fault. Whenever she would go up to him he'd keep telling her just how much work he has to do. John was a prefect and his duties too kept him just as busy as Marlene's quidditch practice kept her. The second time when he'd cornered her regarding Sirius, Marlene had lost her temper and had made John count on his fingers as she listed off the number of times he had brushed her off. He had looked guilty and Marlene had left him with a warning that she'll break up with him if he brought up Sirius again. However the fact that she'd been dating him for seven months kept her from breaking up. She could feel it in her skin that John and her won't last a long time. She tried to brush off the thoughts that explicitly told her that she was far more happy when she was around Sirius. With John she had to force herself to even smile. After the time when she had warned him about bringing up Sirius, she felt even more guilty when he'd gush over her in whatever little time they could find for one another. In the last months of her dwindling relationship with John she had tried to speak to Sirius as little as possible hoping to redeem whatever was left between John and her. Sirius too had been quite furious with her. Sirius and Marlene had almost messed up one of the Quidditch matches because of not being on speaking terms with each other. They had only very narrowly been able to win. Woods, their captain who graduated last year had rained down on the two of them after the match.

It wasn't until one day, when Lily had been assigned patrol duties with John that she found out that John had been cheating on her. Lily had returned from her patrol white faced. It had taken a lot persuasion from Hestia and Marlene to finally have Lily speak up about what was eating her. Whichever turn Marlene had been expecting her relationship to take, it wasn't this one. Even if she did expect the sun to set on her relationship, this wasn't how she had imagined it would. The thought of cheating on her boyfriend or being cheated on by him was nowhere in her list of how they could possibly break up. (She had a list, yes). She had imagined mutually breaking up. Or being dumped. Or dumping John. Moping around and wallowing in her misery for weeks and then getting her shit together. But being cheated on was a new low that she didn't expect John would sink down to. She couldn't sleep all night. Anger was boiling inside of her and it didn't simmer down until it was well over seven in the morning. She had gone down for breakfast vaguely aware of Lily and Hestia following in her stead. She had taken her seat on the Gryffindor table with Lily and Hestia sitting on either side of her. John always came over to her during breakfast to meet her and she was waiting for just that. Lily had told her John didn't know that Lily had seen him snogging a girl. As usual John did come over. Marlene had gotten up from her seat and without any warning had started shooting hex after hex at John. When he tried to talk she hit him with a silencing spell. When he tried to run she hit him with a jelly leg jinx. On and on she went until no one could tell the face of John Dawlish from a troll. When she was done she had climbed the Gryffindor table and had roared, "That's for cheating on me!"

She was vaguely aware of a horrified McGonagall, standing next to a whimpering John, not being able to decide who to deal with first. The crowd in the Great Hall was cheering loudly. Even some Slytherins had joined in. It was only after the head of the Ravenclaw House had come over to take John to the Hospital Wing that McGonagall had moved to attend to Marlene. Gryffindor had lost fifty points and Marlene had earned herself two weeks worth of detention. It had been worth it.

However what couldn't be cured by shooting hexes at John was her growing anxiety about dating someone for the fear of being cheated on again. She had thought hexing John would help her forget about her failed attempt at the relationship. It did. But it brought another huge wave of constantly questioning herself, her ability to have a smooth happy relationship. Sirius and Marlene didn't talk much unless they were at quidditch practice. It was only after they had won the last match along with the Quidditch Cup, that a very drunk Marlene and a fairly drunk Sirius had kissed on the astronomy tower and swore that it won't happen again and promised not to tell anyone. Naturally, they had met up on the tower again on the next day and had kissed again, taking things a little ahead. They decided to not be exclusive. To let off steam without having to engage in the intricacies of a relationship. It had given Marlene a sense of control. A tiny voice in her head often asked about how she'd feel if Sirius would kiss another girl given that they're not exclusive. But she would shush the voice with the thoughts of Sirius kissing her. Her friends didn't know. Neither did James and if James didn't know, there was a thin chance the other two marauders would. Marlene and Sirius had met up all summer. Sometimes in the Diagon Alley, sometimes at her place given her parents had been spending an awful lot of time at work. They'd had sex in Marlene's bedroom. And that's when the tiny voice in her head questioning the exclusivity of her 'relationship' with Sirius had gotten louder. It was true that they had sex. And it was purely physical. And yet Marlene felt annoyed when Sirius didn't come over to meet her on the train. Liam on the other hand did. He was droning on and on about his school in North America. Hestia was barely looking up from her book while Marlene was vaguely nodding in his direction wondering where Sirius was and if she could just go over to kiss him.

* * *

Prefects' meeting was about to begin and Remus along with James, Sirius and Peter were waiting outside the crammed Prefects' Compartment for Lily. The clear plains of grasslands were slowly disappearing and were being replaced by trees and small patches of bushes here and there. They had been on the train for nearly four hours and there was no sign of Lily. Remus was quite positive that Lily would turn up for the Prefects' meeting.

"She won't miss it for the world." he had said.

Now with only five minutes for the meeting to begin he wasn't quite sure. Peter, Sirius and James had scanned the length of the train. James had peered inside the compartment of Marlene and Hestia hoping to find her there but on seeing Lily absent and Liam Bolte sitting next to Marlene he had decided not to drop in to ask about her. Sirius had gone over to check on the compartments on the end of the train towards the driver's coach. There had been a couple of compartments labelled 'Out of Order' that were locked. Thinking Lily would never bother even looking inside such a place he hadn't opened the door to check. The meeting had begun and Remus had entered the Prefects' Compartment leaving the other three boys outside. With every passing minute James got even more worried. _If Lily missed a Prefects' meeting then she's anything but fine, _he thought. He was counting minutes before the meeting ended, hoping Lily would turn up. But she didn't. The meeting was over in fifteen minutes and the prefects came pouring out. James spotted Snape. He tried swallowing his pride and asking if he had seen Lily. But before he could, Snape had his wand out.

"What are you doing here, Potter?" Snape hissed as people around them turned to look.

"Nothing that concerns you." replied James in a cold voice, gripping his wand.

"Where's Lily? Did you do something to upset her again? She didn't attend the meeting. I bet it was something to do with you. I saw you talking to her parents."

"I said, it's nothing that concer-"

A loud bang sounded through the carriage as James flew backwards. A series of loud bangs followed. James quickly got up and sent a hex towards Snape. Sirius was duelling with Avery and Peter with Mulciber. As James could see Snape was about to send a curse towards James but he quickly lowered his wand looking at something over James's shoulder. James turned around and saw a very dishevelled Lily standing there, looking exhausted.

"Lily!" said Snape, as he rushed his way towards her, knocking James on his way, "I was looking for you. You didn't attend the meeting. Did he do something again?" Snape asked, pointing at James.

"Nobody did anything Severus. I'm fine." replied Lily in a cold voice.

James watched her as she made her way towards the Prefects' compartment where the four students were previously duelling. Avery and Mulciber were both on the ground with a body binding hex on them. James followed her quickly as she approached Remus.

"I can't believe I missed the meeting!" said Lily, rubbing her eyes and stiffling a yawn.

"Don't worry, you didn't miss much. We've been assigned patrols for Tuesday and Sunday nights."

"Who's Head Boy and Girl?"

"Apparently it's Frank, but he wasn't here because he's still at St. Mungo's. Head Girl is from Hufflepuff, Mary Smith." replied Remus.

"Gotta go." said Sirius from behind James and rushed past them towards the other end. James made a mental note to ask Sirius where he keeps disappearing to.

"How was your summer?" asked Remus as they started moving towards their compartments.

"Eventful." replied Lily.

They stopped by Lily's compartment and noticed Liam talking Hestia's ears off. Lily groaned.

"Do you guys mind if I sit in your compartment. I can't listen to his school in America at all right now."

"No we don't." replied James as quickly as he could. But he wasn't quick enough as Liam had noticed the crowd and was now waving at them to join them. James and Lily groaned.

"Hey guys. Where have you been Lily?" asked Hestia.

"Hello, Hestia." said Remus as he took a seat next to her asking her about the book she was reading.

"Liam, this is Remus and Peter. I suppose you've met Lily and James here."

"Hi. It's nice to meet you. Yeah I met with them last week at the funeral."

"Where's Marlene?" asked James.

"She went to the loo." replied Hestia.

Lily sat between Liam and Peter while Remus sat between James and Hestia. As Lily had predicted, Liam launched into telling them the details about his school and everyone hoped for a miracle to shut him up. James watched Lily as she looked out of the window, a painful expression etched on her pretty face. Her dark blue blouse made her hair look brighter. Lily rested her head on the head rest and almost immediately looked towards him. James offered a small smile. She looked confusedly at him, before smiling back at him tiredly. James's heart jumped a little. He watched her as she moved her eyes back to watching the forests passing outside the window, occasionally drumming her fingers on her thighs or fidgeting with the hem of her skirt. Liam's rant just became a little bit bearable.

* * *

"Marlene it's Sirius. Open up." knocked Sirius on one of the empty compartments on the back of the train. He had noticed Marlene's dark hair from where he had been duelling with the Slytherins and had followed her. He hadn't had time to see her after he'd witnessed Lily's sister shouting. He along with James had said their quick goodbyes to Mrs. Potter and had dragged their trunks quickly into the train before running off to find Lily. After they had looked everywhere they waited with Remus outside the Prefects' compartment. Sirius was worried over just how disturbed Lily had looked, but quickly forgot about it all the moment he saw Marlene. He mentally cursed himself for not going over to meet with her before. He'd noticed Liam sitting in the same compartment from where Marlene had exited. It didn't help to know she was with Liam all this while.

The lock on the door clicked and Sirius found Marlene sitting on one of the broken seats.

"What are you doing here?" asked Sirius.

"Trying escape Liam's constant babble of his school. Honestly just how much can a person speak?" Marlene replied in an irritated tone.

Relief washed over Sirius as he heard Marlene talk about Liam with distaste. He quickly moved to sit opposite her not sure what to say next.

"Where have you been?" asked Marlene, cautiously, noted Sirius.

He told her all about the the fiasco with Lily's sister and the run in with the Snape and the other two Slytherins.

"Lily could do so well if those two would just disappear from her life. How is she now?"

"She looked disastrous honestly. It takes a toll on a person if their family hates them. But James, Remus and Peter are with her. She'll probably be fine. I hope James doesn't say anything stupid."

Marlene nodded. It was weird talking like this. Normally they'd just skip the small talk. Sitting here talking like this felt peaceful to Sirius. As he raised his head he saw her looking at him curiously.

"What?" Sirius asked.

"Nothing. It's just we don't usually talk this much." she replied, a small smile playing at her lips. Sirius couldn't help but mirror her smile.

"Yeah, it's weird." he replied, as he watched Marlene get up from her seat, taking a step towards where Sirius was sitting. Sirius held out his hand as he helped her onto his lap. She sat astride him and looked him in the eye before placing a kiss on his lips. He snaked his arms around her waist pulling her closer until she was straddling him. He could smell her hair as it fell around the sides of his head wrapping the two of them in a world of their own. He pulled her head towards him and kissed her softly, slowly deepening the kiss as he ran the back of his fingers down the length of her arm which rested on his chest. Her other arm fisted in his hair. He thought he'd lose his mind when he felt the warmth from her breasts which were pressed against his chest. He wanted her closer to him if that was even physically possible. She broke the kiss and Sirius groaned. He opened his eyes and saw Marlene's ocean blue eyes staring back at him. She was flushed from her neck up to her cheeks. Her eyes had gone dark and her breath heavy. Sirius could feel his erratic heart beat and a faint tickle in his stomach.

"Merlin, you're gorgeous." breathed Sirius before he could stop himself. He watched a very flustered Marlene looking anywhere but him. He wondered if he'd said something wrong. Marlene was confident, bold and crazy. He'd seen what she'd done to that Dawlish guy. Sirius knew that Marlene and him weren't exclusive but he'd never dare look at another girl so long as he was with Marlene. But he'd notice her going speechless if he complimented her. It bothered him. She didn't seem to mind when boys on the team ever complimented her. She'd accept the compliment gracefully. Was he doing something wrong? He wondered. He couldn't be doing anything wrong, he decided. After all, other girls loved it when he complimented them.

"What's wrong? Can't take a compliment, McKinnon?" asked Sirius, quirking an eyebrow at her.

"Nothing of the sort." Marlene replied as she straightened her blouse and prepared to get off Sirius's lap.

"Hey, no. Sit down. Let's talk." groaned Sirius as pulled Marlene back down towards himself and securely locking his arms around her back.

"Talk? What do you want to talk about?"

"I said you're gorgeous and got a confused expression from you."

Marlene to Sirius's surprise looked even more flustered.

"You're so entitled that I must pay you back for your compliment?"

"A small thank you would be nice." Sirius replied, sincerely.

"Thank you." Marlene said in a small voice, again looking anywhere but Sirius, her hands resting on Sirius's shirt started fidgeting. Sirius could tell she was nervous for some reason. And although he'd give anything to sit with her like this for the rest of the train ride, he decided to put her out of her misery.

"Okay, let's go before our friends notice we're missing." he said as he helped Marlene off his lap.

They decided to let Marlene go first so no one would notice them coming out of the carriage together. Sirius looked at her she opened the door and slipped outside without glancing at him. _It's going to be a long year, _he thought.

* * *

**A/N: Okay so, I might be updating a little more frequently from now on as I'm done submitting my home assignments and now I've only got to worry about my end semester exams which I'm not quite sure will take place because of the lockdown.**

**I hope you guys are enjoying the story and surviving the lockdown well. Leave a review?**

**Take care of yourselves. Stay safe. The next update might be within this week. Until then. Lots of love. **


	7. MACUSA's Curse On Hogwarts

The train had arrived at the Hogsmede station and the students were filing inside the carriages. Lily, Hestia, Marlene sat in one carriage, along with Liam, much to the dissapointment of the three girls. Lily was wondering if he was going to stick around everyday with them. She wondered if he'll be sorted like the first years. The carriages stopped outside the castle and Lily looked up at the majestic towers and the small ochre lit windows. She felt more welcomed here than she did with her sister at home. _Goes off to that freak school_. Petunia's words echoed in her ears. She shook herself, got off the carriage, almost running into Liam.

"Er.. Sorry." she said quickly and before he could engage her in any conversation she darted off in another direction with an excuse for finding Remus.

She hated this part of coming back to Hogwarts. Last year she and Remus had been made Prefects. Which meant that right after arriving at Hogwarts she had to go look for the Marauders to find Remus. It was easier to look for him just by finding James and Sirius. They caused enough commotion to be easily spotted. And Remus was almost always with them. As if on cue she heard Sirius's bark like laugh from behind her. She turned around and saw Remus coming towards her, breaking away from the band of marauders. She sighed internally. She didn't want to engage with Potter or Black, not after they'd witnessed her being humiliated in public, by her own sister nonetheless.

"Hey Remus."

"Hello Lily. I never got to ask, where were you during the meeting?"

Lily was hoping he won't ask her that.

"I fell asleep, in one of the compartments that were out of order."

"We were looking for you. I think Sirius went to check that compartment. We were really worried when we couldn't find you."

"I was fine, really. Just needed some time to myself."

"They told me about what happened at the station. And honestly you shouldn't run off alone to deal with things when you're hurting. Talk it out with your friends. Makes things much more bearable. I'm speaking from experience." he smiled, ruefully at the last bit.

Lily had known that Remus was a werewolf. She had figured it out in their fourth year but hadn't breathed a word about it to anyone. When in their fifth year Remus started making excuses for the patrols he'd be missing, she had confronted him about it and told him that he needn't make excuse in front of her. She had seen panic, shame, relief, gratitude, all pass through his eyes in less than a minute. They had been more or less on good terms with each other since then and James had exploited every aspect of Remus and Lily's friendship for his own benefit of getting to talk to Lily which usually involved asking her out a hundred and one times in less than ten minutes. But Lily had resolutely stuck with Remus knowing that not many people would know about his problem and hang around to call themselves his friend. The other three marauders knew about Remus's secret. Remus had told her this when she'd confronted him that day about his problem. And while Lily would never openly admit it, she had grown just a little tolerant of the marauders, especially when she found Remus's bed in the hospital wing on the next day of full moon flooding with chocolates, with James, Sirius and Peter crowding Remus cheering him up. She had gone to pay him a visit but she returned without entering the hospital wing, partly because she couldn't have tolerated James asking her out so early in the morning and partly because she was tearing up at the sight of Remus being surrounded by people that loved him despite his disposition.

Lily and Remus guided the storm of unruly students through the Entrance Hall. While the fifth, sixth and seventh year students barely paid attention, the overexcited second, third and fourth year students were tactfully managed by the Gryffindor prefects quietly filing into lines. Once everyone had settled in Remus and Lily made their way to the Gryffindor table to find their friends. Lily took a seat between Hestia and Marlene sitting across from Remus and Peter. James and Sirius were sitting next to Hestia, trying to get her to come up for a title for Slughorn, their Potions professor and the Head of Slytherin house.

"What are they on about?" asked Lily.

"Hestia called Liam MACUSA's curse on Hogwarts." Peter answered from where he was sitting, to which Marlene scoffed.

"Speaking of where _is_ MACUSA's curse on Hogwarts?" asked Remus, mildly amused, but tried to feign seriousness when Hestia shot him a glare.

"The curse has to be sorted first, so we could know which counter curse to use on him." replied James, snickering. Hestia tired of being teased, dropped a fork on James's hand muttering a sweet "Sorry" watching Sirius and James inch away from her, the latter nursing his hand where the fork had hit him.

Soon the sorting ceremony began. After a serenade of applauses from different tables at different times and a number of stumbling, clumsy first years making their way to their alloted table, the ceremony finally came to an end, at least for the first years.

"May I have your attention please. We have a transfer student among us from Ilvermony. He'll attend a term of his sixth year here in Hogwarts and I should hope that the students will do their best to make him feel at home. As the rule goes, he too has to be sorted. Bolte, Liam." announced McGonagall.

Liam stepped forward and sat down on the three legged stool. The seven Gryffindors who had met Liam before arriving at Hogwarts were desperately muttering under their breaths "not Gryffindor, not Gryffindor" glancing around at each other nervously. After a moment or two the sorting hat yelled "HUFFLEPUFF". The Hufflepuff table rose in roars as they got the transfer student. The seven Gryffindors looked at each other with marked relief and almost congratulatory glances. They looked over at the Hufflepuff table, as every student tried to shake Liam's hand and talk to him excitedly.

"I feel sorry that Hufflepuff has to bear the brunt of MACUSA's curse. It's such a nice house." pouted Remus, ignoring Hestia's pointed stare.

"Wait till the curse actually takes effect." piped in Sirius.

"I'll give it one day for the Hufflepuff folks to get tired of him." James replied.

"Nah, they're patient folks. A day and half." said Peter, putting 2 chocolate frogs on the table. On cue every marauder took out 2 chocolate frogs threw it on the table placing their own bets.

"Ladies, would you like to place your bets?" asked Sirius.

"One hour." Hestia said, her face straight as she took out a new packet of Bertie Bott's Every Flavoured Beans putting it on the table. The marauders raised their brows.

"McKinnon? Evans?" asked Peter.

"A day." Marlene replied, putting in three sugar quills.

"Oye Evans?" asked Sirius.

"Hmm?" replied Lily from where she was sitting. She hadn't been paying attention to what was going on. Her mind had wandered off to Snape who was pointedly looking towards their table and Lily was trying to avoid his gaze.

"We're placing bets on how long before Liam wears out Hufflepuffs' eardrums."

"End of this feast." replied Lily placing four chocolate frogs on the table.

Dumbledore had just finished announcing notices and food had appeared on their empty plates taking their mind off of Liam. Everyone discussed their summer holidays. For the first time students with magical backgrounds looked grim while discussing the summer. The muggle borns especially the younger ones were actively going on about their vacations, blissfully unaware of the grave condition the magical world was in.

"Marlene how was your summer?" asked Peter between mouthfuls.

"Yeah Marlene, did MACUSA's curse smother your senses?" asked Remus, as James and Sirius snickered.

"Liam didn't come over until Frank's father's funeral. In any case, I was busy being smothered by other curses in my life." replied Marlene curtly. Sirius spluttered his pumpkin juice all over the table.

"Merlin Padfoot!" said James, as he dried his pants where Sirius had spilled the pumpkin juice.

"Looks like the hufflepuffs have had enough smothering from MACUSA'S curse." Peter said, as the seven Gryffindors looked around at the Hufflepuff table. It was painfully evident that the very students that were, nearly an hour ago, hanging on to every word that Liam said, were now inching away from him. A very few younger girls and boys stuck around still, but everyone else was now pointedly ignoring the boy. To Liam it didn't matter much who was happy to have anything bobbing it's head at his words. Hestia and Lily collected the sweets and candies from the table triumphantly as the rest of the Gryffindors groaned making useless arguments as to how a few girls were still listening to Liam.

* * *

James and the other marauders plonked down on their four poster beds once they reached their dormitories. James couldn't get the upset face of Lily out of his mind. He had debated with himself if he should talk to her about this, but everytime he'd look at her, she just seemed to be so lost that James lost every bit of courage he'd mustered up to talk. He just wanted to wrap her in a hug and tell her just how much she matters and just how much she is wanted. James had always thought that the pureblood mania in the wizarding world alone made her feel as if she didn't belong here. But having watched Lily's sister looking at her the way Slytherins do, not touching her for the fear of being contaminated, made James feel sick to his stomach. Not too far away, lying on his four poster Sirius was thinking along the same lines as James. Neither discussed it. Soon Peter asked what they would do for the start of the term prank. The four marauders, hunched over Remus's bed started planning their first prank of the term. Their dorm mate Charlie McKellen used to their late night meetings drifted off to sleep.

* * *

Morning came too soon for the marauders who'd planned their start of the term prank till three in the morning and had to get up at five to make arrangements for it. They returned from the kitchens, still sleepy, as students in the common room were heading out for breakfast.

"Where have you guys been?" asked Alice suspiciously.

James had been hoping no one would catch them. They had decided not to use his invisibility cloak on their way back to the Gryffindor tower given that it wasn't curfew anymore. James looked at Alice. She looked pathetic. There were huge dark circles under her eyes and she was much thinner than he remembered her at the funeral. He could see a vein popping out on her temple. Her school robes hung over her frail thin frame, drooping over her shoulders. Her eyes were red and swollen.

"Alice are you okay?" asked Remus. He too James realised had noticed her pathetic state. Despite their own lack of sleep, the four marauders approached Alice, hovering over her worriedly.

"I don't remember seeing you yesterday at the feast either." remarked Sirius.

"I came straight to the dormitory. I didn't feel like eating."

"And I suppose you haven't felt like eating for nearly a month now? Look at you!" admonished Sirius.

"I'm fine!" cried Alice as she tried force her way out of the circle the marauders had formed around her. But almost immediately her knees wobbled. Sirius and Peter got hold of her before she could fall to the ground.

"That's it, you're coming to the hospital wing with us." said Sirius as he hoisted her on her legs, his arm supporting her.

"No please, that place depresses me. Madam Pomfrey would just tell me to eat more and give me awful potions." pleaded Alice.

"Well hate to break it to you Alice, but Poppy will be right if she does tell you that. I could wrap you in just one arm!" said Sirius, as he dragged a very reluctant Alice towards the portrait hole.

"Okay okay, you know what. I'll just eat a lot at breakfast." replied Alice, hoping this would work. The marauders seemed to consider this offer.

"Okay. But you're eating with us. And you'll have to eat as much as Sirius does." said James. Sirius made a show of rolling his eyes and looking offended.

"Fine! But don't you guys have to change?" asked Alice looking at their pyjamas.

"Er.. Right, we do. But wait for us here. We'll be back in ten minutes." James said hurriedly as they picked Alice up and broought her to sit in an armchair.

"Don't move or we'll find you and send you to Poppy." cried Peter over his shoulder, as the four boys rushed to their dormitory to change into their school robes.

* * *

Lily descended the stairs of her dormitory to find Alice sitting in one of the armchairs, looking exhausted. She walked over to Alice to ask why she wasn't going down for breakfast. Alice explained the entire episode with the marauders. Lily felt a twinge of annoyance as she thought taking Alice to the hospital wing would have been a sensible decision. But this doubt was soon wiped off her mind as she saw the band of marauders marching down, with James and Sirius hoisting Alice up to sit on their shoulders, walking with extravagant steps with Remus and Peter clearing the way ahead for 'Her Majesty'. Her perpetual exasperation for James and Sirius, who could be making Alice dizzy who was already in a bad shape, was battling with her heart that had warmed up at the sight of a hearty smile on Alice's tired and sad face. As they entered the Great Hall James and Sirius made their way to the usual spot and put Alice down making her sit between them as Remus and Peter sat across from their friends. Lily took a seat next to Sirius with Marlene on her right and Hestia across her, sitting next to Remus.

"What's happening?" asked Hestia, not looking up from her book.

"We're making Alice eat as much as Sirius." replied Remus, helping himself to some scrambled eggs. Hestia snorted but said nothing.

"What is it with everyone?" asked Sirius, feigning annoyance.

"Oh no." Peter said as he looked over their shoulders. Lily turned around and regretted her decision immediately. Striding towards them was Liam. The eight Gryffindors groaned.

"Hello people. Fine morning isn't it?" Liam greeted everyone as he squeezed himself in the little space between Marlene and Lily, putting his arms around their shoulders. That got Sirius and James's attention. Sirius pulled Lily towards himself so there'll be enough room for Lily and Marlene.

"So did you guys get your timetable yet?" asked Liam.

"Not yet no." replied Marlene, her face trying to form a polite expression.

"Oh, anyway, we've got Herbology together, first period, double lectures. I'll see you there, Evans?" asked Liam, his eyes looking hopeful. James's head whipped in the direction of Liam and Lily. He couldn't see Lily's face but he could see her inching away from him.

"Er .. Unless we'll be in different rooms, I guess yeah." replied Lily, with apprehension.

"Cool." chuckled Liam as he almost made to get up. But before he could Professor McGonagall came up to them with their timetables.

"It's advisable to dine at your own house table, Mr. Bolte. I hope you'll see to that." said McGonagall in a curt tone.

"Of course, professor. I just dropped by to say hi." replied Liam as he hurried off to his own table.

McGonagall handed over everyone's timetables and moved down the table.

"Aww, MACUSA's curse is crushing on instead of cursing dear Evans." teased Hestia, her face straight. Lily glared at Hestia but the latter couldn't be more at ease. Only Hestia was immune to Lily's death glare, before which, as Marlene had mentioned, even McGonagall might shudder.

James dropped his fork with much force than was necessary. Sirius looked around at a clearly annoyed James and decided it was time to put their late night hard work at display. He quickly made Alice gulp down the entire goblet of pumpkin juice and forced her to eat her eggs and toast as fast as possible. Once the marauders were satisfied that Alice had had enough for breakfast, they nodded at each other discreetly. Sirius muttered something under his breath and not a second later a grape in Lily's plate jumped up and sprouted two legs, two eyes, a mouth and two arms which started peeling the skin on the grape off. Once the skin was off, it climbed up the highest point on the pile of fruits kept in a big basket and took a swan dive in Lily's goblet of water, splattering it all over her school robes.

"What the hell was tha-" cried Lily as she moved away from the goblet. Soon the entire Great Hall was a mess, as fruits all over the tables sprouted arms and legs and peeled of their skins to take a dive in anything that looked remotely liquid. A bowl of porridge became a bath tub for a banana and a couple of oranges. Some students were horrified but most of them laughed. Once Lily had overcome her initial scare, she too rolled her eyes and allowed herself a chuckle as grape after grape took dive in water. Professor McGonagall and other heads of houses came over trying to contain the situation while Hagrid and Dumbledore shared a laugh as the former poked an orange which covered its "mouth" with its hand in indignation.

"We need to help McGonagall." stated Remus, half smirking, half looking apologetic, looking at Lily.

"Right. You don't happen to know how to make it stop, do you?" she asked knowing fully well he did. James and Sirius snorted loudly.

"I think Moony can stop anything he's capable enough to start in the first place, after all he's the brains of th-" remarked James under his breath but was cut off by a sharp blow to his head by Remus who was now walking towards McGonagall, Lily tagging along with him, looking confused.

Remus in fact did help in stopping the mess, feigning ignorance of the matter.

"I think it was more like a chain reaction. The first grape jumped in Lily's goblet of water and then every other fruit followed suit." he had said to McGonagall, who didn't look even mildly convinced that Remus didn't have a hand in this. Remus had let the professors come up with different spells to reverse a chain reaction until they had found just the one. McGonagall had then ordered the prefects to use them to finally "announce bath time was over, lest their fingers turn pruny".

* * *

The rest of the day looked pretty dull according to James. They had Transfiguration with Slytherins, Defence Against the Dark Arts with Ranvenclaws. However they had double lectures of Herbology in the very first period with Hufflepuffs and James couldn't help but feel uneasy. Liam, in James's view, couldn't be anymore insufferable than he already was. His sharp laugh and overly patient eyes triggered something in James that made him want to punch the patience out of his eyes. Usually, the marauders were the last to reach a classroom, however, James wanted to reach as fast as possible because he knew Herbology to be one of the classes where Lily paired up with someone other than Hestia or Marlene. Normally James would reach the classroom wishing she hadn't paired up with anyone else but today he'd rather have her paired with a giant squid if he couldn't reach in time, than that Bolte bloke. He was also trying to keep a calm face on lest the other three marauders start with their usual teasing and worrying over James's _crush_ on Lily.

"Come on mate, she hates him too. Don't be jealous."

"I'm not being jealous!" defended James, "I just don't want him to spoil her mood." he said weakly.

As they reached the classroom James looked around. Mary Mcdonald and Jane Prewett were paired together as always, Hestia with her boyfriend and Marlene with her Hufflepuff friend. James let out a groan when he saw Liam putting his bag down next to Lily. But before anyone could take the spot behind Lily, James grabbed the marauder standing closest to him by the collar and dragged him to stand behind Lily.

"..we don't have herbology as a separate subject you know." James listened to Liam talking to Lily as James and Remus settled in their spots. "We cover plants and herbs as a smaller branch in Potions, that way we just filter and learn about the plants that are actually gonna come to some use. I don't see the point of having a separate subject. Herbology should be elective, you know, for those who want to specialise in it or something. Anyway, it's not like I'm in my school, right?" said Liam, as he smiled at Lily. Lily nodded her head rather stiffly.

"Say Liam, you don't happen to know when you'll be going back to that school of yours?" asked James and received a kick in the shins by Remus.

"He meant how long are you _staying_? Did you get any news from your father?" said Remus, ignoring James.

"Nah man, all I know is that he's crazy busy these days. Last I checked I was staying for a term. I'll only get to know anything around Christmas when this term ends. It'll be a shame to miss Christmas at Ilvermony. You know we have this huge bewitched Christmas tree.." James, Remus and Lily groaned as Liam launched into yet another one of his school stories. Soon they set off to work, trimming their Boom Berries and keeping them in ice cold water. The double lectures seemed to be passing doubly slow as James tried to hang on to every word Liam said, reluctantly, just so he could intervene if he tried making a move on Lily or tired asking her out. But to no one's surprise, Liam just kept on talking. The closest he came to addressing Lily was when he told her she'd really like it in Ilvermony. Thankfully the class came to an end.

"So Evans, what's your favourite subject?" James heard Liam ask Lily. _Charms_, James knew. _Although she's more fascinated by Transfiguration._

"Lily!" cried Lily as she pushed her hair back with cold, wet hands.

"Er.. I'm sorry what?" asked a very confused Liam.

"Lily, my name is Lily." she said.

If anyone had looked in the general direction of James, they couldn't have missed the look of confusion, followed by horror, annoyance and hurt plastered over James's face. However, what they also wouldn't have missed was the irritation etched on Lily's face whenever Liam called her Evans. But James was as blind to this as a lover can be when faced to battle jealousy.

"Eh.. Yeah right, yeah, Lily." smiled Liam as if he'd just won the lottery. They began packing their bags.

"She asked him to call her LILY! LILY! Five years I've known that girl, one should think that's enough to credit being on a first name basis!" cried James as he met up with Sirius in front of the class to put their frozen boom berries in the cooling shelves.

"I don't know man, maybe she's got hots for blokes that rant."

"I can rant! I rant all the time about her to you guys!"

"Try doing that to her, maybe it'll work." offered Sirius as they walked back to pack up their stuff.

* * *

_The nerve of __him, _thought Lily as she hurried out of the greenhouse, but almost got knocked off by James as he hurried past her, not looking back at her to drop an annoying remark about how wonderful her hair looked today, as he usually did.

_So Evans, what's your favourite subject? _Liam's words rang in her ears. It annoyed her beyond reason when he called her Evans. She could almost see the annoying smirk of James when Liam called her Evans but everytime she'd raise her head, Liam would be grinning down at her. And for some odd reason that made her angry and dissapointed. Her feet were thundering under her as she made her way back to the castle not caring to look back if Hestia and Marlene were close by. Her overthinking brain had just had got food for thought and it was chewing it mercilessly. Why did she feel angry? More importantly why did she feel disappointed to find Liam instead of James? Maybe because she could hex James and shout at him to her heart's content but has to behave when it came to Liam because he was a guest here and also because she was a Prefect. She can't go on behaving rudely to a transfer student, she reasoned. Her brain seemed to be considering her answering, but spat it all out in pure rejection. In that case she should only feel _angry_ because she can't hex Liam. She felt disappointed for an entirely different reason than Liam. She felt disappointed because she wants James to call her that. And not in a way where she could tell James that they'll always be on a second name basis. But in a way that made her want to hear him say her last name just so she could finally listen to her name being said the way she's grown used to listen it. From James. With cockiness and arrogance wrapped around it. _What?! _ Lily stopped dead in her tracks at that thought, making the students that were following her close behind stumble onto her. Remus fell down on Lily and Marlene and Sirius on top of each other.

"Please don't tell me you just remembered that you forgot your boyfriend in the greenhouse and were going back to walk with him. Who stops like that?" said Marlene she struggled to get up but her robes got stuck with Sirius's belt.

"I'm not complaining Evans. You should stop like this more often." remarked Sirius who lay flat on his back arms behind his head as he watched Marlene, lying on top of him, trying to avoid his gaze, struggling to pull her robe out of wherever it was stuck.

"Oh shut up Black you're such a dog." spat Marlene. Peter and Remus snorted.

"You've no idea." remarked Sirius.

"Aargh." cried Marlene as she pulled her robes in frustration. Her robe tore at the the sleeve, but she couldn't care less. She sat up straight, atop a smirking Sirius and got up swiftly, kicking Sirius in the ribs before taking her bag and walking with Lily.

Lily hadn't notice Marlene running towards her to catch up. She had continued pounding her feet on the ground, thinking even more thoroughly about what she had just thought. Did she _like _having her name taken with arrogance and cockiness especially by _James sodding Potter? _As they reached their classroom Lily saw James was the only one sitting there talking with McGonagall. As the class entered, James looked up at Lily and almost as if he didn't saw her walked straight past her to sit with his friends who were standing behind her. Lily didn't know what to make of it. Some unconvincing part of her was relieved he didn't make an embarrassing remark in front McGonagall but a huge chunk of her brain was working overtime to figure out why James's nonchalant behaviour was putting her off. Maybe she was looking forward to hear him call her Evans. She shook off that thought as quickly as it entered her mind and took a seat with Marlene. She looked around and couldn't spot Hestia.

"Where's Hestia?" asked Lily.

"She was walking with her boyfriend after class. She might be late, after all they're meeting after a week or two." said Marlene with a sly smirk.

"So if you'd meet your boyfriend after a week or two, you'd be randy?" asked Sirius as he poked his head around in their seat.

"Try staying away from James for a week or two and find out for yourself." replied Marlene as she shoved his face back to his seat.

The rest of the day went by rather uneventfully except when Liam came over the gryffindor table for lunch and Sirius spilled pumpkin juice all over him and Peter dropped scones on Liam's head while he was trying to teach a very reluctant first year to levitate objects. Liam had left soon after. And while James did look in better spirits after the lunch incident, he didn't so much as spare a glance towards Lily. And Lily being as stubborn as she was, didn't admit to herself that James ignoring her bothered her. The very fact that she said, "It's not!" out loud at one point during their dinner,

when James asked Marlene to pass the salt instead of Lily who was sitting right next to him, was enough of a proof that it was bothering her. She went to bed early, cursing the day and Liam and her wretched brain for making a fool of her at dinner, and hoping this urge to listen to James call her Evans would just go away with a fresh day.

It didn't.

* * *

**A/N: I'm a horrible person for saying I'll update within a week. But I promise I'll start updating regularly now. Got my shit together.****Anyway I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Thanks for reading. Leave a little review?**


	8. Dilemmas

Hestia walked with her boyfriend, Rufus Clearwater, as he talked about the growing tension between his parents. He was a half blood, his mother a muggle and his father, pureblood. The two had grown up together, fallen in love and had married. His father had been besides himself when his mother had agreed to marry him despite him being a wizard. But with the growing tensions in wizarding world, she has been asking her husband to leave his job and stay low. She was a surgeon, and argued that they'd still have enough to get by even if he leaves his job. But his father had been adamant on not leaving his job. Hestia listened, her head down. She always listened better when she had her head down, looking at something insignificant. When Rufus sighed out of frustration she took his and hand, looked up at him and smiled.

"They'll be okay, Rufus." she said, softly. Hestia has never been good with words. It frustrated the life out of her that she couldn't speak the words she'd have on the tip of her tongue. She was exceptionally an quiet witch. Although she did have a scathing tongue when it came down to it, but normally, she found it better to just keep it all in, sipping on her tea and having conversations in her head. Although for a while now, it's been difficult keeping things inside of her. Rufus and Hestia had been together for at least four months now. For Hestia it was a long time. She hadn't exactly been in a long relationship. She'd been asked out five times since their third year, had walked out of three dates, spilled tea over the fourth guy on their second date and had been in a relationship for four months with the fifth guy, Rufus. And while it felt good that she had someone outside of her friend circle with whom she can talk (not that she spoke much), it didn't feel right. But maybe that was because she had never been in a relationship before, she had reasoned. Sure kissing Rufus had been nice. But she never realised what the whole hype was about. She was never out of breath, or had her heart hammering or her body tingling when Rufus wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her against himself. She sure felt her neck getting warmer until that warmth reached her cheeks, ears and then her head and pricked at some spots on her scalp. But that too, soon withered away as she got familiar with rhythm with which Rufus moved. And this is what had happened with their relationship too. In the beginning she had found Rufus charming. He was always out of breath trying to tell her something funny and she had been more than happy to listen to him. This however was beginning to be a routine. And heaven knew Hestia hated routine. Her smiles had become forced, her nodding and shaking her head had found a pattern according to the tone of Rufus and at points she'd just nod mindlessly, her brain looking for something, anything new. And she had found something new. It wasn't new per se.

Remus Lupin had acquired quite a huge share of space in her brain even back in their fourth year. She had never exactly paid attention to him before until one day she was paired with him in Transfiguration and realised just how much funny he could be if only you'd listen to him muttering under his breath. Hestia, who was very selective at what she found humorous and was the most difficult to get a chuckle out of, had found herself unable to stop from bubbling up with laughter so much, that McGonagall had called her out for it. Lily and Marlene had given her curious looks for a whole week whenever she'd sit with Remus. For nearly a month she had found herself enjoying Remus's company, at lunch, dinner, in the class until he was absent for a couple of nights and when he did come back from home, he looked sick and exhausted. It wasn't until for the next few months that she realised he was a werewolf. She hadn't told anyone and neither had she confronted Remus about it. She enjoyed his company so much that she had wondered what it would be like to date him. The thoughts had impaled her mind when he'd be explaining to her something or would be just talking with his friends. They had been sort of friends with each other, and had exchanged letters over the summer. Hestia had never experienced being attracted towards a boy so much that she'd want to spend time with him. Normally she just existed around people, highly disinterested in what they talked about let alone engage in chatting or attentively listening. But her constant wish to seek out Remus's company had made her ask him out on the first Hogsmede weekend of their fifth year. He had refused making some excuse about not being in the head space for dating someone and insinuating that if anything, Hestia might end up getting hurt with his problems at keeping a relationship. Hestia hadn't pursued the matter, well aware that it was his lycanthropy that he was referring to. Hestia had found it incredibly difficult to keep her calm around him after that. Her heartbeat went haywire and her stomach lurched at the sight of him concentrating on cutting beans or stirring the potion, his brows knitted and his lips pursed, but this was also accompanied by her heart clenching. She had never wanted to hug anyone as much as she had wanted to hug Remus. She hated hugs. Marlene and Lily always used the threat of hugging her to death to make her do their bidding. But Remus, she wanted to hug, feel his warmth spread to her. She wasn't sure she wanted to kiss him, sure it'd be nice, she had reasoned, but she wanted to hug him and hold him close for eternity and the fact that he had refused to go out with her made the thought even more painful. She then had done the only reasonable, sensible thing anyone, who'd been rejected by their crush, would do. Hide. She'd spend her free time in her dormitory, studying, instead of in the library where she was sure to find Remus. She'd wolf down her meals with extraordinary speed, while still maintaining her calm and would rush back to some hiding spot before the marauders could get in the Great Hall. To her relief or maybe dismay, Remus hadn't tried to confront her for ignoring him. _Maybe it didn't bother him at __all, _she had thought. Only when she had successfully cut him out of her routine, that she had returned to her normal self, lazy mannerism, disinterested in conversations and a bored expression playing on her face. Gradually the feeling in the pit of her stomach had dulled over the months. She didn't feel the desperate urge to hold Remus close. The dull pain in her chest was still there but had disappeared soon after she'd started dating Rufus. It had distracted her from her thoughts and had given her an environment away from her familiar company. Despite of what her bored eyes may convey, there was nothing Hestia loved more than change. Especially the change of her surroundings, sometimes a fresh company (even though she'd still look bored) and Rufus's company, his friends, had brought a much welcomed distraction for her. But now that she's found herself zoning out of Rufus's company she wondered if she'd started dating him only as a means of distraction or did she really enjoy his company. Something deep inside of her knew that she wasn't happy in her relationship but she was desperately trying to hold on, because she didn't know if she'd be able to face Remus and not go through all of those emotions all over again, once she broke up with Rufus.

"There you are. I think the class hasn't started yet. I'd better hurry up, else Slughorn will make me assist him in making some potion." said Rufus as they reached the Transfiguration classroom where Hestia had a class.

Rufus kissed Hestia quickly on the lips and rushed off to his class. Hestia sighed and entered the class, determined not to look in the direction of Remus.

* * *

"Just where do you think you're running off to, McKinnon?" asked a familiar voice, as Marlene jumped and was quickly pulled into a dark corridor. She found herself face to face with the one person she'd been avoiding. She rolled her eyes. The classes for the day had finally come to an end and she had told Lily and Hestia that she'll rest in the dormitory before dinner. Her dormitory however was already occupied with Mary and Janine her other two dorm mates along with some of their seniors. All she had wanted to do was avoid Sirius Black. She had been successful so far but stepping out of the Gryffindor tower, hoping he wouldn't find her, was her biggest mistake.

"The library." she replied.

"I don't see your bag, or any books or any parchment or any quill." said Sirius, raising his eyebrows.

"I just need to get a book issued so I could study in my dorm." she replied.

"Library is the other way."

"I just wanted to take a walk."

"Come on McKinnon, you're getting lame." he said, grinning.

"What do _you _want Black? Don't you have a skin care routine to follow?"

"Hair. I've a hair care routine and it's only for Saturdays and Wednesdays."

"Urghh, what do you want?!"

"I think you've a fair idea what I want."

"A shampoo with glittering charm?"

"That, and a nice, steamy snog."

"Well you're out of luck today."

"Really? I thought you were good with charms."

"Lily is good with charms. I'm great at self defence."

"What are you gonna defend yourself from? My cheekbones?"

"That and you standing this close to me." replied Hestia, her will to avoid Sirius slightly wavering, heat rising in her cheeks.

"I promise to step back, if you stop blushing like that." he said, smirking and occasionally glancing down on her lips.

Marlene sighed. This was what she had been avoiding. Not being able to resist Sirius was now getting on her nerves. The entire day Sirius had lurked around her, dropping lewd remarks, pulling on her hair, giving her unbridled attention. That had earned her the glare of a number of girls that he had previously snogged or who had wanted to snog him. She wondered if they knew about them. She had always scoffed at the girls who'd throw themselves at Sirius and had often voiced her thoughts to Lily and Hestia. She wouldn't be able to face them if they ever found out that Marlene had been snogging (and more) Sirius with zero intentions of being romantically involved.

"What're you thinking?" asked Sirius.

"If this corridor is dark enough to hide our dirty little secret." she replied, looking at Sirius straight in the eye.

"It's dark enough to hide a Slytherin's dark soul." replied Sirius, a mischievous smile playing on his lips.

A look at that face made Marlene want to punch Sirius's smug face but it also made her desperate to feel him pressed against her. So she wound her arms round his hip and pulled him towards herself locking her lips with his. All thoughts of being found snogging Sirius Black by anyone, let alone her friends, left her mind the moment Sirius groaned into her mouth, pushing her against the cold stone wall. The thought of possible shame of being discovered right now with Sirius sucking on her lower lip went away as Sirius brushed his fingers over her nipples peaking through her t-shirt. She shuddered. Her skin was burning against the cold stone wall behind her. Sirius tilted her head up and kissed her neck. Marlene moaned and opened her eyes. What she saw made her freeze. A girl not older than fifteen was peaking around the corner. She ran off the moment their eyes met. Marlene pushed Sirius away who looked confusedly at her.

"Some girl was standing right there." said Marlene.

"Do we know her?" asked Sirius.

"No but she definitely knows us, we're on the quidditch team and if not us, I'm pretty sure she knows _you._"

"Come on, what can she do really?"

"Tell the school about us?"

"Will it be that bad?" asked Sirius, a curious expression playing on his face.

"Sirius we agreed that if we'd do this, it'll always be under wraps. Besides I'm not one of those girls who take pride in having snogged Sirius Black and share lewd details with the Hogwarts rumour mill."

"You're _ashamed _that you're snogging me?" asked, Sirius, all traces of mischief gone.

"I'm not _ashamed, _Sirius. I'm just not those girls who pine after you and snog you and then wear it as a badge of achievement." replied Marlene, the look on Sirius's face making her uncomfortable. Was he hurt? Or was he angry?,

"I'm lost here. Yes, we agreed to do this under wraps. But I enjoy your company enough to not give a shit about what others think of us. Clearly you don't."

"Sirius, I enjoy it just as much! But you don't get it. No one's going to think any differently about you, but they will about me."

"Fuck them! They'll think shit about you anyway. People say shit about Evans all the time just because she keeps rejecting James. They'll say shit about her even when she'll agree to go out with him after years of rejecting him. She doesn't listen to them. Partly because one shouldn't and partly because James and I take care of the people that talk shit about her. And I'll take care of anyone who'd dare utter a word against you." said Sirius, his face straight.

"I need some time to myself Sirius." Marlene replied looking down.

"Fine. I'll walk you to the library." said Sirius, after a long pause, as he stepped back allowing Marlene to walk.

They walked in silence until they reached the library.

"Thanks for walking me here." said Marlene, breaking the silence.

"Not a problem." replied Sirius as he turned around and left almost immediately.

* * *

Sirius rushed back to his dormitory, not sure why he could feel his insides turning with anger. He was walking with deliberate steps as if punishing the floor under him for his own behaviour. They did agree to keep this a secret. And he knew that he was being unreasonable asking why Marlene was so scared of being discovered. He knew his own reputation of a womaniser and he knew that when girls agreed to go on a date with him they usually knew he didn't _date _girls in the generic sense of the word. They'd go on one date, they'd snog, end of date. Sirius gave heads up to every girl that would approach him or the ones he approached, that he didn't want a relationship. He didn't think he'd be capable enough of being attentive, responsive to someone like James was to Lily. James knew her favourite colour, flower, every bracelet she owned, every piece of clothing she'd worn for the past five years. James knew it all. And to Sirius it seemed effortless. As if James didn't have to put any extra work into paying attention to the quill or that muggle quill that she used. He did it out of pure and unabashed curiosity and love for her. Sirius tried. On the first date that he went to, he tried remembering what the girl ordered, what she liked, what she didn't. He went with the same girl for another date and then another date. On the third date remembering stuff about her seemed to have become like a piece of homework to him that he didn't want to touch. He was so frustrated by the end of the date that he, in the most polite way possible (because after all manners were the first thing taught to a Black) broke up with his date. She had cried. Sirius had tried comforting her. He had taken her back to the castle, walked her to her common room in the basement. Her friends had shot daggers from their eyes his way. He had realised two things. He couldn't pay attention to a girl even if he wanted to and he didn't need to if it was only a snog he was looking for given that he gave the girl a disclaimer before agreeing for a date. He never took a girl to Hogsmede after that. At least not anywhere public in Hogsmede.

But this was before Marlene. In their fifth year he seemed to have enjoyed her company more and more as they reached quidditch practices before the scheduled time and talked their head off. She had a boyfriend back then. And for once Sirius enjoyed the company of a girl who wasn't bashing her eyes at him. She'd look straight in his eyes and rap his head with a rolled up newspaper or her broomstick whenever he'd try being cocky with her. She was only a few inches shorter than he was and he enjoyed seeing straight in her eyes when they stood facing each other. They've had their share of ups and downs in friendship. Especially when her boyfriend had called her out for spending too much time with Sirius. He had been mad. He remembered having his ears assailed with one furious James after a match which they had almost lost because of the animosity between Sirius and Marlene.

Sirius was angry at Marlene. And her boyfriend. If your girlfriend is spending more time with someone else it's _because _you don't spend enough time with her, he had thought. And that was when the thought had sneaked its way into Sirius' head. The thought that he'd never want to leave the company of Marlene if she was his girlfriend. He remembered feeling giddy at the thought of Marlene being his girlfriend. His heart had raced and he had spilled his tea all over James having lost control of his hands. He had put his hands over his face and surreptitiously looked over at Marlene who was sitting a few seats down the table, pointedly ignoring him. If it was possible his heart had raced even more than before as he saw her rubbing her tired eyes and stifling a yawn. Soon after that she had broken up with that Dawlish guy and Sirius had refused to admit that he may fancy Marlene more than as a friend. His best chance at that came when they had kissed on the Astronomy tower. Later they had agreed to keep it a secret, to not be exclusive and definitely to not be anything more than friends, even if they snogged occasionally. Sirius had gladly accepted it in his euphoria of kissing Marlene (which he was sure was the best thing he knew other than quidditch and living with his best mate), him and Marlene finally being on speaking terms, and snogging Marlene without being in a relationship with her (which would finally prove that he didn't fancy her). He knew he was in trouble as he thought about not fancying Marlene because the moment he entered his dorm Peter looked up at him and asked, "What's eating you?".

If Peter could tell something was off, then it must be.

* * *

**A/N: thank you 'Guest' for your review. Next update: Sunday. Stay home guys. And leave a review? **


	9. The Last Straw

The first week back was quite uneventful and doubly boring for the sixth years. To add more to the burden, the teachers had drowned the students in homework. The OWLs year now seemed to be a distant fairyland where they at least had six hours of complete sleep. Sirius and Marlene were still maintaining a healthy distance. James had now warmed up to Lily a bit, emerging out of his sullen mood, but would plunged right back into it for at least two to three hours if he heard Liam calling Lily by her first name. Lily was quite relieved (and subsequently worried to find herself relieved) to find that James would occasionally look towards her and give her a cocky grin or a wink. She almost instantly returned his smile with a scowl or an eye roll but somewhere at the back of her mind she was happy things were back to normal where she can scowl at James instead of wanting to hear him say her name. But then again, her relief may also be resulting from the fact that he had called her Evans over the week (although his arrogant tone seemed to be at bay) and her incessant need to listen to him say 'Evans' was put at ease finally.

After a long tiring week, weekend had finally arrived. They had just finished with their Potions lesson and were heading back to their common room.

"When do you reckon the first Hogsmede weekend will be?" asked Marlene.

"I don't really know, so far only the Head Girl is managing the Prefects' meeting, she sometimes misses out small details. It's too much load for her. I hope Frank will be back soon." replied Remus, who was looking sick. Lily soon realised tomorrow would be the full moon night and Remus won't be able to accompany her for rounds today along with the next two days.

"Any news of him?" asked Lily.

"Same, not responding to the Potions." replied Remus.

"How'd you know?" asked Lily.

"James' mother wrote to him yesterday. Mrs. Longbottom is keeping herself occupied while she's not with Frank at the hospital."

Lily had contemplated writing to Mrs. Longbottom but had decided she might be grieving and might not want to respond to letters just yet. Somewhere in the background James and Sirius were making exploding sounds in the corridor. Lily had half a mind to turn around to see what was happening but then again, Liam was somewhere at the back and she didn't want to catch his eye. Just then it hit her. _Were they pranking Liam? _She whipped her head around to see what the commotion was and found James and Sirius duelling with the Potrait of Sir Cadogan.

"Cowards!" the portrait shouted, indignantly as James and Sirius exploded a dungbomb near the frame and ran away. Sir Cadogan was now chasing them running from portrait to portrait.

"Stand and fight!" panted Sir Cadogan, as he chased the two boys now setting off dungbombs near every portrait that Sir Cadogan appeared in. People were clapping and hooting and were being shouted upon by the original owners of the portraits Sir Cadogan slipped in. Lily felt a twinge of guilt as she found herself enjoying along with other people. Mr. Filch is going to have a field day cleaning up all that, she thought. So instead she waited till she was behind the crowd of students after the Hufflepuffs had separated from the Gryffindors and had whipped out her wand to clean up the mess the dungbombs had made. The portraits thanked her as they themselves straightened their dresses and dusted the curtains in the painting. About a minute later or so Filch had arrived, as usual in a bad mood, with his nose scrunched up in disgust and anger. He grunted towards Lily, which she only assumed was his way of thanking her.

"Don't know what they think of themselves, running amok, wreaking havoc. I'd rather have Peeves throwing water balloons than have the two of those cartoons in the castle." grunted Filch, "it's okay, I'll clean it up from here." he said, attempting a smile, which looked a little like a grimace.

"Its quite alright Mr. Filch, all these portraits are on my way to the Gryffindor Tower, I'll clean them up on my way."

"Are you sure?" he asked. He definitely looked as they he didn't want to scrub all the paintings clean and Lily was just too kind to let someone clean up after someone else's mess.

"Oh yes, of course." she replied with a bright smile.

"Alright then, if you need help I'll be there in my office." and for the first time Lily knew she saw Filch smile, a grateful smile. She kept cleaning off the portraits but when she turned round the corner she found all of them already clean. She looked around doubtfully. She knew these portraits were dirty too.

"Uh, excuse me, who cleaned these portraits?" she asked one of the portraits of a grumpy looking wizard.

"Oh you know, that tall one, with untidy hair. Merlin he needs to tame that hair. If he were my son he'd be hanging from the ceiling till he fixed those ruddy clumps he calls hair." the man grumbled.

"The one who set off the bombs?" asked Lily, still not sure why James would come back to clean the place.

"Yeah, the same. You people don't get enough work from school. Have lots of time to spare. Setting off dingbombs and then cleaning up after.." the man went on but Lily was hardly listening. She couldn't comprehend why on earth would James Potter come back to clean up the mess. She felt irritation rising up in her mind, pricking at her head. She shook herself. The last thing she needs is to waste her weekend trying to figure out the reason behind why James Potter does what he does.

She headed straight for the tower and didn't stop until she had climbed inside through the portrait hole. She looked around for her friends. Marlene and Hestia were sitting in the armchairs in front of the fire and the marauders were sitting right in front of them on the carpet. James Potter was missing. Lily rolled her eyes, not wanting to know where he was. She walked over to the group. Sirius and Peter were playing wizard's chess. Remus was eating chocolate and was reading something. At least he was trying to, as Lily noticed he looked positively ill. Marlene and Hestia were trying to make paper planes that Lily had taught them.

"You've got to fold that piece _sideways_, not back." remarked Lily as she saw Hestia struggling to make the wings of the plane.

"This is ridiculous." said Hestia, throwing up her arms. Lily sat down between Marlene and Hestia.

"What took you so long?" asked Marlene. Lily debated whether she should tell them that she cleaned up the mess behind. She decided against it.

"Yeah Evans, what _took _you so long?" asked a very familiar voice coming from behind her armchair. Lily rolled her eyes. _Did he know? _

"Nothing that's your business." she replied curtly.

"Oh I think it was." said James, sitting on the arm of her chair. Lily scooted away from him. She looked up at him and wasn't surprised to see his annoying smirk plastered over his face. _So he does know._

"Lily, a word?" asked Remus from where he was sitting.

"Yeah." answered Lily. She knew Remus just wanted to tell her he wouldn't be able to accompany her for their rounds today but Lily could just give anything to move away from James, so she got up and followed Remus towards a quiet corner.

"I won't be able to come for the roun-" started Remus.

"I know Remus, I checked the chart. It's full moon tomorrow."

"You sure you'll be alright? I can ask some other prefect to fill in for me."

"I'll be fine Remus, don't worry. You'll be in the hospital wing today?"

Remus nodded.

"I'll come by to visit, if I can." smiled Lily.

"You don't have to." said Remus, suddenly going very red.

"I know." Lily replied, laughing and dragging him back to their friends.

Lily's laugh faded away as she saw James sitting in her armchair.

"I was sitting there!" she said as she kicked the bottom of the armchair. It moved a little.

"You could still sit here, you know." replied James, patting his lap, his insufferable grin on his face.

"Don't test my patience Potter." threatened Lily as she felt bile rise up in her throat. Nothing, nothing on this planet could make her as angry as this creature in her seat did.

"Or what _Lily?_" taunted James, saying her name as Liam does, a tinge of accent lacing his voice, but she could also sense a bit of irritation in his voice. He laughed as Sirius high fived him. And to her horror she felt tears pricking at the back of her eye. Her eyes grew in disbelief and before she lost all control of herself and started crying she yelled, "Rot in hell, Potter!", but before she could turn a stray tear had run down the side of her eyes.

She ran up to her dormitory leaving her bag behind. She closed her eyes and felt tears rolling down her cheeks. She wiped her face in confusion. She hated Potter. Yes. She hated Liam too. Yes. But James saying her name like that, like it was something he despised is probably what made her cry, she reasoned. She kicked her trunk and then sat down on her bed. What _does _he think of himself? How can someone just go on making fun of people, hurting people? Lily could never even think of hurting a fly let alone a full grown human, bubbling with complex emotions and thoughts. What did he want from her? To not talk to anyone but him? So what if Liam likes her. Aren't people just allowed to fancy whomever they like? Or do they need a written permission from James Potter? Sure she'd been teased enough by Sirius and Marlene about Liam. She didn't mind. But James saying her name like that had hurt her. _Sirius and Marlene too said your name like Liam does, _a small voice in her head said. She furrowed her brows, making some more tears fall down. It was then that she realised, this was the first time she had heard James say her first name. The thought made her uneasy. She'd grown so used to James addressing her as Evans, that she never realised he'd never called her 'Lily'. She let that sink in as she wiped her eyes one more time. She flinched. Her eyes stung a little because of being wiped continously. Maybe that's why she was hurt. Because James said her name for the first time like a taunt. _You didn't even know he'd said it for the first time until now, _the same voice said. Lily shook her head stubbornly. For the first time (she was having a lot of first times thanks to Potter, she noted) she _didn't _want to know why she had reacted the way she did. The thought that she might find an unknown feeling hidden somewhere under the layers of her stubborn personality made her extremely uneasy. She didn't want to explore that depth. She heard the door of the dormitory creak open. It was Marlene. She looked at Lily worriedly.

"Lily are you oka-"

"I'm fine, Marlene." replied Lily, wiping her face and flinching when the corners of her eyes stung.

"We were playing a game of Exploding Snap, you fancy playing?" she asked.

"No, I think I'll sleep for a while. Wake me up before dinner will you?" asked Lily to which Marlene nodded. She closed the door behind her and Lily lay down. Her eyes were tired and it didn't take even a complete minute for Lily to fall asleep.

* * *

James was pretty sure this was the longest he'd waited for someone. Marlene and Hestia had picked a straw to choose who'll go to check up on Lily. A task no one enjoyed when Lily had gone up in a sour mood. Marlene pulled out the shorter straw and had gone up to their dormitory. All air had left his body the moment he'd seen a tear rolling down Lily's eyes. He'd almost immediately followed her to the stairs of the girls dormitories but couldn't go any further. Of all the times he'd fought with Lily, he'd never made her cry. _WHY did he have to be such a jerk!? _Why couldn't he have just given her her seat back and sat down with Sirius and then all of them could have played Exploding Snap and Lily would still be here, in a good mood, in front of the fire, her hair looking a lighter red, almost like a dark orange. But no he had to go on make her mad. _Old habits die hard_. He rolled his eyes at the thought. But this was bad. This was worse than before. He had made her upset. Never had he made her upset before. This had to be a record. He felt all the weight in world weighing him down. The thought of Lily upset, locked in her dormitory, mulling over what had upset her over and over again had always made him sick. And for the first time he was the reason for it. He felt sick with guilt. His heart which usually would beat out of time with excitement whenever he'd have a fight with Lily, was now beating with a dull thumping sound that came at regular intervals. He could remember three definite occasions where Lily had been upset. When she'd been called a mudblood in their second year, when Snape had called her a mudblood last year and when her sister had called her a freak a week ago. His heart ached as he thought he might be in that list, now that he'd hurt her too. Of course it wasn't as bad as calling her a mudblood or a freak but when one is that young and in love, the consequences of one's smallest actions seem to bring about a storm that can't be tamed.

"She's not coming. She went to sleep." said Marlene, bringing James out of his thoughts.

"What'd she say? Is she okay? Is she upset? Was she crying?" asked James in a single breath.

"She said she's fine. I don't think she's okay. Yes, she looked quite upset, and yep she was crying. She asked me to wake her up before dinner." answered Marlene, looking at James.

"I'm such a jerk." said James in a small voice.

"It's probably nothing James. Maybe she was upset over something else and you just pulled the last straw." she rubbed his back, affectionately. Marlene was his childhood friend. She was, along with the marauders, one of those friends with whom James shared his feelings about Lily.

"Yeah, just another infamous week of her ignoring me." said James, kicking his heels into the sofa. The rest of the gryffindors sat down to play Exploding Snap but James opened up the marauders' map which showed everyone at castle and stared at the dot labelled Lily Evans, in her dormitory.

* * *

Hestia had tried avoiding sitting next to Remus but had failed as Peter got up to get some candies from his dormitory and sat down between Remus and Sirius on his return, leaving Remus shifting to sit towards Hestia. She knew the full moon was tomorrow and Remus looked as ill as she'd seen him be. Her face heated up as she felt his knee brush her hand. Her brows furrowed as she tried to concentrate on the game and not on Remus' light ragged breathing. _This is going to be one long game._

* * *

Dinner that night was a quiet affair, with Lily very obviously ignoring James and James looking at her guiltily. But still all was good until as usual Liam showed up. Lily was obviously in no mood to entertain even her friends let alone someone who could talk his head out. Luckily neither was James or Sirius or Marlene or Hestia. Remus had already been shifted to the hospital wing.

"'Sup people?" greeted Liam as he sat between Hestia and Lily. Hestia grunted in reply and Lily simply said nothing.

"Whoo. Someone's in a sullen mood eh?" said Liam looking from Hestia to Lily. Marlene had half a heart to warn Liam, but she thought he deserved a bit of Lily's fiesty side.

"So, Bolte," started Hestia.

"Liam. Call me Liam."

"Right. So, Bolte. Why aren't you at your table?" asked Hestia tartly.

"Came by to say hi. You lot look much gloomier. What happened? Lily? You're awfully quiet."

"Am I now?" asked Lily, looking at Liam, her eyes flashing dangerously.

"I mean, yeah, you didn't even say hi." said Liam completely oblivious to Lily's rising anger.

"Oh I'm sorry if I was a bit tired of you ranting about your school and how it's so much better than Hogwarts and how you'd rather be there than here. Well here's a reality check for you. You're here. At Hogwarts. And unless you can appreciate it, I'd rather not talk you. Oh wait no. You're the one who does all the talking all the damn time! I stand corrected. I'd rather not _listen_ to you unless you've something better to talk about the school that's actually sheltering you right now." fumed Lily. A couple of students from around their table had poked their heads around to see what the commotion was.

"I-I am sorry I had no ide-" but Liam never got to finish. Hestia's hand had slipped and she had dropped hot tea all over his robes. The moment he made to get up he fell backwards on to the floor. Lily only very briefly saw the tied laces on his shoes, which untied themselves the moment he fell. A couple of students passing by toppled over Liam. Lily quickly helped him back on his feet, but he didn't stay around at all after that. He walked straight out of the Great Hall. Nobody spoke after that.

Lily patrolled the corridors alone that night vaguely aware of anything happening at all. She stopped by the hospital wing but Remus was already asleep. Feeling tired and exhausted she walked back to the Gryffindor tower. It had felt good for once to see Liam flustered and scared. She was positive that Liam falling down was entirely marauders handwork. She didn't know if she was grateful or angry. She was grateful for one thing. She didn't have to face Liam apologising. Merlin knew she hated being on the receiving end of an apology. It always made her feel as if she's some big bad guy who has wronged someone that they had to come to her begging for an apology. She instead starts feeling the need to apologise to someone for apologising to her. So she was quite grateful that she didn't have to face an apology. But she was angry. There was absolutely no need to embarrass Liam like that. He was a foreign student in a foreign school. No one deserves to be bullied like that. _Yeah well your own words didn't do much good, did they? _Lily shook her head and entered the Gryffindor tower. The last person she wanted to see was standing right there, in the deserted common room. She started to move towards her dormitory hoping he won't notice her (even though he was clearly waiting for her).

"Evans, Evans, Evans, Evans." called James urgently as he moved to block her way to the girls' staircase.

"What Potter?" asked Lily, her voice sounding tired as she folded her arms in front of her.

"I just .. I never thought .. you know. I never meant to hurt you. It was just good fun. I'm annoying I know, and I can make you angry, but I never meant to hurt you. Anything I do or will do or did do, nothing was or will be with the intention of hurting you. I can never hurt you, at least I never want to. I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to make you cry." apologised James, his eyes looking like a guilty puppy. Something in Lily stirred. For one, James Potter had never apologised to her, or to any human she knew. Two, he clearly looked extremely guilty of having touched a nerve with her. Her annoyance and anger with him slowly ebbed away as she saw him becoming increasingly uncomfortable, and if possible even guiltier with every passing second that she kept him waiting. She could feel her instinct of apologising to the person asking for forgiveness seemed to be taking over, but for once it felt right.

"You know what, it's late, you're probably tired, you should go to be-" James started as he moved out of her path.

"No wait, Potter. It's nothing really. I had been annoyed with Liam for a while now, and Sirius and Marlene give me enough hell about him. You just really pulled the last straw. I guess that's why I lost it."

"Yeah, but you didn't just lose it did you? I mean you lose your cool around me all the time but you were crying. I've only known you to cry when the thing with Snape happened and at the station bacause of your sister last week. I just didn't want to be in leagues with those two, no offence to your sister."

"You're not even in the same sport, Potter." said Lily, remembering just how different James was from Severus and Petunia. He was as different from them as he could be. And whatever reservations Lily seemed to have regarding James faded away as she remembered their conversation in Diagon Alley. She allowed herself a smile and was surprisingly happy to see James mirroring her smile. "As for crying I do cry for reasons other than those two." she added, although the reason of telling him this was lost on her.

"What were you crying about that night?" asked James carefully, pushing his luck. Lily remembered the night James had comforted her.

"Petunia had written me a letter telling me to never come back home so she could tell her friends that I had died in an accident instead of having to make up excuses for my absence. She said she'd never wish even for her enemy to have a sister like me." replied Lily her voice void of any emotion.

"That's horrible. Who wouldn't want you for a sister?" James looked aghast.

"You?" said Lily rolling her eyes and then smacked herself mentally. _Are you trying to flirt?! _ James looked as if he'd seen a giant squid playing strip poker.

"Uh, yeah, well that's a fact now I guess." replied James, smiling weakly not sure how to react.

"I'm really tired, I should probably go to bed." said Lily hurriedly as she moved towards her dormitory, not at all wanting to meet James' eyes.

"Goodnight." said James awkwardly, although Lily was already climbing the stairs. But he was sure he heard a faint "Goodnight".

James sat down in one of the armchairs, completely dazed by what had transpired. A civil conversation. _Was Lily flirting with him?! _He shook his head. He was probably imagining things. He replayed their conversation in his head until he fell asleep in the armchair. It wasn't a comfortable night but he was saved as he saw Lily smiling at him in his dreams.

* * *


	10. Finding Friendships

James woke up with a start as something soft and tiny poked his cheeks. He looked around and noticed his glasses were perched on the top of his chest. He put his glasses on and looked at a small boy standing beside him, looking at him expectantly.

"What?" asked James, groggily.

"Your friend, the one with long black hair, told me to wake you up after the Prefect girl had gone down to breakfast." he said it in one breath. James noticed he seemed to be in a hurry.

"What? But why?"

"He thought it'll be funny." the boy said, with his foot gently tapping the floor in impatience.

"Git." muttered James. _Had Lily seen him spread out half on the sofa, half on the floor, early in the morning?_ He groaned at the thought and he put his face in his hands. He then looked up and saw the boy still standing there.

"Why did you even listen to him? You should've gone down to breakfast."

"Your friend said that you'll let me fly on your broomstick later in the evening." the boy said, now smiling widely, all signs of impatience gone.

"That wanker. Fine. Meet me here, around five." said James, as he waved the boy off. He got up and left for his dormitory to get a shower. He thought about last night. He thought about his dream. He was flying on his broomstick and Lily was smiling at him. _Smiling. _Like she had smiled at him last night. The smile on his face quickly turned into a soft scowl as he remembered that Lily had probably seen him lying about ungracefully in the common room. Now even if she did see him flying gracefully on his broomstick, she'll never smile at him. The thought of flying brought another train of thoughts into James' mind. _Who'll be captain this year? _There was a good chance of Dorcas becoming a captain. Dorcas even became their captain for at least two matches when their captain was injured. She was a seventh year too. And while he'd have love to have Dorcas as captain, he couldn't help but feel a twinge of jealousy at the thought. The thought of becoming a quidditch captain seemed far fetched when he thought about Dorcas and her experience, her skills, her tact, but the thought also seemed hyper real when he thought about just how many times he had designed plays to beat other teams and the plays have never failed them or how he had been the one who had trained most of their new recruits late into the evenings. He too _had _put in a hell lot of work for his team, as much as Dorcas, he noted. He sighed as he dismissed the thought thinking that he still had his seventh year to look forward to as a captain, while for Dorcas this was the last year at school.

* * *

Lily had woken up half an hour later than usual and had hurried down hoping to avoid one dark haired boy only find him sleeping on an armchair in the common room. _At least he's asleep, _she thought in relief. As she got down, she got a closer look at him. One of his legs was perched on the arm rest, while the other was thrown carelessly on the floor, his mouth was slightly agape, his glasses were almost about to fall off the end of his nose, and so was his wand from his pocket. He looked flushed and Lily knew without even having touched him that his skin must be warm. James stirred in his sleep pulling Lily out of her thoughts. She looked at him and was about to leave when her instincts to correct disorderly things tickled the ends of her fingers. She looked around for anyone that may see her committing what she would consider an offence. There was only a first year, everyone else had gone down to breakfast. She hesitated as the first year looked at her as if he knew something, but another look at James softened her a bit. His glasses were now pinching his nostrils and he was having trouble breathing. She carefully slid his glasses off and saw James take in a deep breath through his nose and almost automatically closed his agape mouth. She put his glasses on his chest, pushed his wand back in his pocket, she grabbed the wrist of one of his hands that was dangling down and placed it carefully on his chest. His skin _was_ warm. _If Satan knew his kid looked so innocent while sleeping, he'd disown him, _Lily thought to herself. James stirred again. Lily turned around and almost sprinted towards the portrait hole hoping James wouldn't get a glimpse of her. She made her way to the Great Hall and after spotting her friends she went over to sit down with them.

"Why didn't you guys wake me up?" asked Lily as she sat down between Peter and Mary. Lily had cordial relationship with Mary, one of her four dorm mates. Mary too was incredibly good at charms and Lily loved exploring and practising charms books and spells with Mary when they had some free time on their hands. Marlene and Hestia sat across from her.

"It's Saturday Lily, plus you returned from your patrol so late. We thought we'd let you sleep in." replied Mary, kindly.

"Did you see, James? Sprawled out like a sloth." giggled Marlene.

"Maybe he got kicked out of his dormitory." joined in Mary.

"What'd you think he did?" asked Marlene.

"Insulted Black's pretty face." said Hestia rolling her eyes.

"Look at that, Jones thinks I'm pretty." came Sirius' rich voice from behind them as he slipped between Lily and Peter, now sitting directly in front of Hestia.

"Pretty barmy." replied Hestia, with her characteristic straight face on.

"Where have you been?" asked Marlene as she buttered her toast.

"Nowhere you need to know." replied Sirius a bit curtly. Marlene was taken aback at this. Sirius had just gone to visit Remus in the hospital wing. His basic instinct was to snap at anyone who asked about his whereabouts in general let alone when he went to visit Remus before the full moon. Sirius looked cowardly at Marlene, but she had gone back to buttering her toast, more forcefully than before, Sirius noted. He turned to Lily.

"So Lily, enjoyed the beautiful view in the common room?"

"I'd hardly call it beautiful." replied Lily rolling her eyes, although she could feel the insides of her wrists tingling at the thought of James Potter sleeping, his hair falling into his eyes. He looked so huge sprawled out like that. Lily couldn't ever remember looking at him and thinking _that's one big boy. _She had always thought she could take James down in a fist fight without breaking a sweat. But today he looked huge almost like a troll. _A very pretty troll though, _a voice in her head said. His arm was so long that his hand that had been dangling down the armchair was almost resting on the floor. He had long fingers too. She could almost imagine his fingers always itching to annoy someone.

"Morning everyone." said James as settled next to Marlene. Lily looked up at him as he helped himself to some eggs. He was avoiding her. Lily breathed a sigh of relief. At least now _she_ wouldn't have to avoid him. Nobody spoke for for a few moments until Hestia broke the silence.

"Wrong foot, Black." she drawled, not looking up from her newspaper. Everyone looked up at Sirius curiously, Marlene had a small smile playing on her lips, James was laughing, Sirius had choked on his tea, Lily and Peter were desperately patting Sirius' back hoping to stop him from coughing.

"What do you mean, wrong foot?" asked Peter as he now passed a clean napkin to Sirius to wipe off his mess. Marlene looked alarmed, Sirius did too but he was in no state to speak.

"If you're going to be playing footsie with your boyfriend, at least familiarise yourself with his foot." replied Marlene, looking a bit flushed.

"Okay, we may let you joke about Sirius being my boyfriend but we sure as hell don't play footsie." defended James.

"You keep telling yourself that." replied Hestia, smiling. Everyone except James and Sirius laughed.

* * *

The rest of the day went by peacefully. It was a sunny day outside and most of the students had brought their boards games and books to the grounds. Marlene and Sirius had spent half their time debating whether the Slytherin boys would look better wearing skin fitting cloaks or if the girls would look better with a collar bone length beard. They still hadn't come to a conclusion. James and Peter were huddled away from where Sirius, Marlene, Hestia and Lily were sitting, talking quietly. Hestia had been avoiding meeting her boyfriend, faking a headache and pretending to look sick. When Marlene and Sirius had left to put their plans for Slytherins to test, Lily had closed the book she had been reading and turned to Hestia.

"Hestia is there something you want to talk about?" asked Lily, looking at Hestia.

"Not really. Why?"

"You've been avoiding Rufus."

"I haven't been avoiding anyone. I'm just sick." defended Hestia.

"You know it's really difficult rolling one's eyes that far back in the head when one has a headache." said Lily, trying to suppress a smile. Rolling eyes whenever Sirius and Marlene were around had become Hestia's second nature.

"I just don't feel like being around him for some time." replied Hestia, not giving away everything, but not lying either.

"Why?" asked Lily.

"I don't know why." said Hestia, looking down on her lap, hoping Lily wouldn't probe further. Nothing made her more uncomfortable than people probing her to tell her feelings out loud. She could easily tell people off, but Lily was her friend. And she knew that friends tend to share (in her opinion over share) things, thoughts, feelings. Hestia had never been someone to share her feelings. She liked them hidden away, known only to her, so her friends won't look at her with pity when things don't go the way she wants them to. The pressure and tradition of sharing one's thoughts with their friends had made her pull a straight face at all occasions so no one would know her enough to tell when she was troubled. But as they say, she thought with an internal sigh, friends know you better than you do yourself.

"I'm just asking to know if it's okay if one starts feeling differently about a person out of the blue." said Lily.

"I suppose yeah. But I can't say for sure. Sometimes you think you've successfully suppressed some feelings, but they just come right back up, unannounced." replied Hestia, her mind slightly wavering off to the thoughts of Remus in the hospital wing.

"You don't feel the same for Rufus?" asked Lily, knowing she was treading on thin ice. Hestia didn't like letting anyone in on the things she decided to stow away in her mind. The situation with Rufus seemed to be one of them.

"I do. I mean, I still adore him, but it's sort of gone you know? Earlier I used to love listening to him talk. And I feel horrible admitting it, but now I just can't take it anymore. I feel like I've reached my saturation point of listening to him. Merlin, I feel so pathetic just saying that out loud." answered Hestia, as she put her head in her hands. Lily reached out and grabbed Hestia's hands and pulled them away from her face.

"There's nothing wrong in being exhausted, or being just done with it. You're only human. You're not pathetic. You're one of the kindest people I know and it's okay if you're tired and need some time to yourself to think things through." said Lily, consolingly. Hestia didn't look up. She quietly pulled her hands from Lily's and got up.

"Yeah you're right. I think I just need to be alone for a while. Will you be alright here? Do you wanna come too? Don't suppose Marlene and that chipmunk are gonna show up anytime soon." offered Hestia, making an attempt at a smile.

"I'll be fine, go ahead." replied Lily, smiling kindly at her. Lily watched Hestia's retreating figure. Hestia was a confident, bold girl, that had, nearly four years ago, told a fourth year Lucius Malfoy to go fuck himself when he had called Lily a mudblood. While Lily and Marlene had been the best of friends right from the first night at Hogwarts, Hestia had pretty much kept to herself, until that day. It was their second year and the Gryffindor Quidditch tryouts were taking place. Marlene was flying with the rest of the players while Lily and most of the Gryffindor kids were watching them from the stands. Lucius Malfoy had shown up and had asked Lily to leave, as the sport was too sacred to have any filth lying around it or its spectators. But before he could finish the word Mudblood, Hestia was on her feet, pushing Lucius to the ground.

"At least none of us has to walk around with the filth that fills your head and is stuffed up your bottom. I'd tell you to go fuck yourself but you're too thick to do even that." Hestia had spat at his lying figure on the ground. Lucius had scurried off, muttering something along the lines of "you'll pay for this".

Lily had been so scared because she didn't understand what was so bad about whatever that had happened that the quietest girl in their class had to say things that could land her a detention if she said them in the presence of a teacher. Lily had started packing her bag to leave. Maybe the boy was right. She had no knowledge or interest in the game, she was there only to watch her friend try out for the team. Maybe the people who didn't have much care for the game weren't allowed near it, some sort of tradition maybe, she had thought. Hestia, however, had different plans. She had grabbed Lily's bag and sat her down. For the next hour, Lily had listened to Hestia telling her all about the rules of Quidditch, the balls, the players. Then she had told her about the school teams, after that the quidditch clubs and then the national teams and the Quidditch World Cup. Lily was sure she had listened more to Hestia in that one hour than she had listened to her in the past school year.

Hestia had then told her about the M-word Lucius had used and all she could tell her about the pureblood mania that was slowly gaining momentum. It was the only time Lily had seen the calm on Hestia's face disturbed. Hestia had told Lily to make herself an indispensable part of this world. To not think of quidditch as just a sport you couldn't care for. To know everything about everything, because when time would come, the purebloods would use anything and everything to justify why the muggle borns shouldn't be a part of this world. And no muggle born should give them that pleasure, Hestia has told her. Lily had held on to that advice and the adviser for her dear life.

That day Lily had kept awfully quiet while Marlene had talked about her tryouts. Later at dinner time, some more Slytherins had cornered Hestia in the Entrance Hall. Marlene had noticed the ruckus and had called James, Sirius and some of the Gryffindor seniors to the Entrance Hall. The Gryffindor Prefects had sorted the matter out, however, Marlene, James and Sirius had rounded up on Hestia to ask what the matter was. When Hestia had finally told the group what had happened earlier that day, Marlene had hugged Hestia and had told her that she was a badass that Marlene wanted to be. Marlene, Sirius, James, Peter, Hestia and Remus had gathered all the Gryffindors in the common room around Lily to tell her that this castle was home to her just as much as it was to everyone else and before she could tell, she was drowning under the weight of all the hugs she was receiving from everyone. Although admittedly, that weight was far more comforting than it was painful. James and Sirius had taken it upon themselves to tell everyone how Lucius was kicked to the dirt by a second year Gryffindor for bullying. James and Sirius had been extra protective of Lily and Hestia from then on whenever they had their lessons with the Slytherins (they still very much are).

Getting Hestia to come out of her shell was difficult. She wasn't used to the normal ways of showing affection. She wasn't fond of hugs, while Marlene practically distributed hugs throughout the school to anyone who might need it or even to those who didn't. Hestia rarely talked about her family or anything that could give away the nature of her relationships with anyone she was close to. Very soon, after small quarrels and days of not speaking to each other, they had realised that every one had their Achille's heels. The three girls had found friendship to be one of those gambles of life where one has to risk it all and hope for the best. They carefully avoided conversing about topics that any one of the three might find uncomfortable. They adopted to each other's way of showing affection. Hestia would give Marlene a hug whenever they'd meet after holiday breaks. Marlene would let Hestia sleep in her bed on whenever Hestia was on her period (everyone knew better than to even sit on Marlene's bed which she was unnecessarily possessive of). On regular days, Hestia would always keep something packed from the kitchens in her bag, knowing Marlene gets hungry during lessons. Lily would prepare a timetable for all three to follow, for which Hestia was eternally grateful for, because Merlin knew how much Hestia despised making timetables. Marlene and Lily would make sure to unclutter their dormitories every weekend. Hestia in their first year would do it herself every weekend and she continued doing it in till their third year, without asking anyone to help her. Marlene and Lily didn't know just how much cluttered spaces bothered Hestia until one day when she had the flu and she asked them to unclutter it. The two girls had set off to work almost immediately because this was the first thing Hestia had asked of them ever since they became friends a year ago. However, when they were half way through with uncluttering, they realised it wasn't half as easy as they thought it was.

"Merlin Lily, where does all this stuff come from? What do the elves do?"

"They only have to _clean _the space, take out the trash, straighten the sheets. They don't touch the stuff that we use but keep thrown under our beds." Lily had replied, pushing her hair back.

They had resolved that they would do this every weekend because no one should be left with this task alone. And so they did. Hestia of course noticed it, because Lily and Marlene would find a bowl of pudding at their side tables that day right before bedtime. Marlene and Lily had realised that while Hestia had earned herself the reputation of someone who doesn't show much affection, she, of the three of them was the one that showed most of it, in her actions more than in words.

Lily dragged her thoughts away from Hestia and realised that she too had some business to take care of. She grabbed her bag and pulled out James' jersey and his sweatpants that he had lent her. There was also the note she had found in his pocket, that had her initials on it. She looked down at it. She was sure that the initials scribbled on it were L and E. But she had spent quite some time figuring out what else the letters could be. She had shown the parchment to a first year and without so much as a second look he had told her it was L.E. and that she should consider getting her eyes checked by madam Pomfrey. For some reason her pulse was getting a wee bit quicker, as she looked over at where James and Peter were sitting. _It could be anyone's initials_, she thought, and placed the parchment on the top of his jersey, as she walked towards where James and Peter sat under the tree.

* * *

**A/N: I'm so sorry for updating so late. I've been drowning in work. Who thought staying at home would turn out to be more busying than attending regular university? Not me.**

** Anyway ****CharlotteReading and**** the guest, Validray, thank you for your review, it made my day!**

**There was another guest review, I'm guessing it's Validray again? Do correct me if I'm wrong. Anyway so the guest review on chapter 8 saved my life (not literally lol) because i remember proof reading the chapter and having to change the name from Hestia to Marlene at some point, and I can't believe i did that mistake twice and just skimmed over it while proof reading (I've updated the chapter with the correct name) Thank you so much for pointing that out. **

**Regarding the perspective thing, i do seem to have a problem, because i keep messing it up(?) because i so want to write about what the other character is thinking while we're still in someone else's perspective. It's a stupid urge that i always give into but i suppose it'll have to stop, too many people have pointed it out now xD.**

**Hope you guys enjoy reading this fic. Love ya so much xoxo**


	11. Jersey Over Giant Squid

Lily glanced over at where James and Peter sat, no more talking quietly. Peter was lying flat on his back, and James was propped up against the trunk of the tree scribbling something on a piece of parchment. Lily grabbed her bag and pulled out the pair of sweatpants and James' jersey that he had lent her. She had placed the piece of parchment she had found in the pockets on the top. She looked down at it. She was sure the initials L.E. were scribbled on it. But she had spent quite some time figuring out what else the letters could be. She had shown the parchment to a first year. Without a second look they had told her it was L.E. and that she should consider getting her eyes checked by madam Pomfrey. For some reason her pulse was getting a wee bit quicker, as she quietly approached the two boys.

"Hi." said Lily, her voice barely audible.

"Hey." James replied, trying not to meet her eyes.

"Hi Lily, come sit with us, we're waiting for Sirius. He's run off with Marlene again to trouble some Slytherins." said Peter, rolling his eyes.

"And didn't invite you guys?" asked Lily, smiling a little, as she sat down in front of James with Peter at her side.

"No not that. I mean yeah, he could have invited us too, but we had to make plans for tonigh-" Peter was cut off hurriedly by James.

"Enough about us, what's up with you Evans?" asked James, giving Lily a charming smile, and turning to Peter to glare at him when he was sure Lily wasn't looking.

"I just wanted to return this," Lily started as she pushed the sweatpants and his jersey in James' direction, "I also found this in the pockets. It's got a bit washed out."

Lily gave James the parchment with her initials on it. As he took the parchment from Lily and looked at it, his eyes turned wide and he quickly crumpled the parchment shoving it in his pocket.

"Er.. thanks. Important parchment," replied James, now completely avoiding Lily's eyes, "you should keep the jersey, y'know, looks good on you." added James, his cocky smile almost making it to his face, before his ears started turning pink.

"I'm too short for it." Lily replied immediately. "Not that I would want it if I were tall." she added quickly.

"A lot many girls would choose that jersey over a giant squid you know." said James, grinning as he flipped his wand between his fingers.

"Then I'm not 'a lot many' girls." replied Lily, rolling her eyes.

"No. No you're not." said James, finally looking up at Lily, studying her curiously. Lily couldn't look away from James. Normally James would receive a flying quill on his head. Not that Lily would ever boast, but she had great aim and there was a phase when James had pestered her to try out for a beater. Lily of course had refused on the grounds that she might not be able to fight her instinct and aim for James' head instead of the other team's members. Lily knew (or thought she did) James was doing that only to get her attention until she had heard him talking to Sirius and Remus. James had been saying, that he of course knew she couldn't fly well, at least not as well to play quidditch, but he acknowledged the fact that she'd make a great beater, if only she could fly to play.

_"She's got it all, you know, eye for the trouble maker, force and great aim. You'd think she's small and can't hit you, but she's got force. She threw Marlene's candle at my face last week, and I had the bruise for an entire day. Think what she could do with a bludger and a bat!" James said._

_"I thought you said you got that bruise because you got into a fight with some Slytherin git." Remus pointed out._

_"That's not the point!" James guffawed, throwing a cushion in Remus' direction._

And while Lily would never admit it openly, she had felt strangely at home, and had laid off of James for the next few days, until he had sent paper planes bewitched to follow her around the entire day.

James was still regarding her as if she was made of puzzles only Ranvenclaws could solve. Her pulse had quickened and her palms were tingling with a sensation she felt only when she was in the face of the unknown, mostly during her practical exams. James wasn't unknown to her. Neither were his antics. She was well acquainted with them. But he had been surprising her a lot since the summer. Making Lily, whether consciously or unconsciously, reassess everything she had known so far about him. The feeling of seeing James in a new light was unsettling. Remembering every sane thing he did in their previous years, during such reassessment was even more unsettling. She had quietly tucked away everything good about James Potter just so she could have an objective approach to mentally putting him in the 'Satan's Box'. Her thoughts went over to the two people she knew would never see the light of the Satan's Box. Severus and Petunia. But both of them had changed so drastically that Lily had been forced to put one of their legs in Satan's Box and had let the other stay in their old, 'VIP Box'. Everyone, as she knew them, was turning out to be someone else entirely, then why should James Potter be an exception, she thought.

Without knowing what had come over her, she reached out and pulled James' jersey towards her.

"I think I'll hold on to this." she said, as she got up from her place, because honestly, she'd rather have Marlene chase her down for throwing her candle at James (she thought it got knocked out of the dormitory window because of some storm) than deal with James looking at her like that.

* * *

Marlene and Sirius waited for a fourth year Slytherin to pick up a stray cupcake in which they had mixed the potion that turns makes the hair on the drinkers head stand up like spikes. The targeted Slytherin was in an abandoned classroom, brewing a potion while Sirius and Marlene were huddled in the classroom cupboard.

"Sirius?"

Sirius turned to look at Marlene, who despite the dark of the cupboard was looking a bit nervous.

"Yeah?" Sirius asked, equally nervous. If Marlene was nervous about something, it can't be any good, he thought.

"About that day-"

"I know, listen it's okay, if you don't want to do this anymore. I know I was wrong about, you know, not caring if someone sees us despite promising that we'll keep this a secret. It'll be okay if you don't want to do this anymore." said Sirius, trying to maintain a steady voice, even though his heart seemed to be going helter-skelter.

He had tried telling himself that even if Marlene decides to end this arrangement of theirs, he'd still be friends with her, play quidditch with her, prank Slytherins and attend classes with her. But the thought had made Sirius feel as if he was about to miss the Hogwarts Express. He felt anxious, as one feels when something tries to wiggle its way out of one's grasp. The past week however Sirius had realised that, if anything, Marlene might just get more mad at him, if he tried holding on to her. More or less like Regulus had. And so the decision had been made, if Marlene didn't want to continue with their relationship, he'd agree. And now that the elephant in the room had been addressed, Sirius held his breath, waiting for Marlene to drop the bomb on him. It never came. Not at least in words. Because after regarding him for a moment, Marlene had pressed a light kiss on Sirius' lips. Sirius had blinked rapidly through the kiss. The dark, the smell of the potion brewing outside the cupboard, the scent of Marlene's shampoo, her hands pressed on his chest, and the anticipation of rejection had been way too much to process anything, let alone the kiss which had been the least expected thing to happen. But before Sirius could respond, Marlene had pulled away.

"I enjoy doing whatever we do, with you. You _were _wrong. We did agree to kiss and not tell. If you want to stop, we can, but I'd rather snog you to compensate for the nasty scowls i get from girls for just hanging out with you than get those scowls for nothing in return." finished Marlene, a hint of a smirk playing on her lips.

"So you're basically using me to feel good about the scowls?" asked Sirius, amused, but also massively relieved, that he wouldn't have to let go of her. Not yet.

"Basically, yeah."

"What do I get in return?" pouted Sirius.

"Um me?" scoffed Marlene, and though Sirius couldn't see, he knew she rolled her eyes. Marlene always rolled her eyes when she scoffed.

"A fair trade I'd say." mused Sirius.

"More than fair really." teased Marlene.

"Okay, don't get ahead of yourself." said Sirius, as he leaned forward to kiss Marlene.

"-AAAARRRGGHHH"

Marlene and Sirius jumped apart, and peeked outside the cupboard through a crack. Sirius had forgotten about the Slytherin in the classroom who now had hair all over his body growing out and standing on its end. The potion was boiling out of the cauldron, onto the floor, over which the said boy skidded and fell down on his behind. Marlene and Sirius had clapped a hand to their mouth to stop themselves from laughing out loud. They stayed in there for another fifteen minutes until someone had heard the poor boy's screams and taken him to the hospital wing. The two Gryffindors had then gone on to finish what they had started before the poor Slytherin had met his fate, after all they had been deprived of each other's company for a week.

* * *

James was waiting in the common room for the first year boy who had woken him up in the morning. Sirius was still missing, Remus was in the hospital wing, much worse than when James had seen him in the morning. James sometimes felt guilty for feeling this excited about the new moon when Remus practically despised it and was positively scared by it and for good reason. But James loved it when he transformed into a stag. His senses became so much more pronounced and amplified, and he felt so much in control. He breathed a heavy sigh as he looked towards the portrait hole hoping for the kid to show up. Much to his surprise it was Lily who climbed down from the girls' staircase. He looked over at where she stood at the last step of the staircase, her gaze fixed at him, looking as if she was frozen to the spot. James' hand flew to his hair to push them back, and clutched his broomstick tighter.

"Hi." said James, after he got the hint that Lily might just choose to die on that spot than speak to him first.

"Hi. I didn't think quidditch practice started this early in the session." Lily said, looking quizzically from his broomstick to James.

"Oh, no, not practice, we haven't even had try outs yet. Hell we don't even have a captain as of now. Sirius set me up to take a first year to ride my broom." explained James, scowling at the thought of Sirius who has been missing in action for most part of the day now.

"What did he have on you?" Lily asked raising her eyebrows. James contemplated telling Lily Sirius' evil plan. _Maybe then she'd let go of that horrible image of me in her mind and see me in a new glorious beautiful light, _James thought.

"He made the kid wait for you to show up, so you could see me spread out like jam." smirked James, although he was struggling contain the horror that was building up inside of him. _What if she laughs? And tells the whole school about it?_ he thought. He dismissed the idea. _Everyone loves me, _he thought smiling internally.

"What?!" spat Lily, her eyes wide, her face looking wild.

"Uh, yeah, he can be a dick sometimes but really I don't think he meant any harm." spluttered James, fearing for the life of his best mate at the hands of the love of his life. _That'll be some drama, _he thought ruefully.

"Are you telling me you and your boyfriend weren't together in making me look like an absolute idiot in front of a first year?! I'm supposed to be believe that you had no hand in this?!" asked Lily, her voice dangerously quiet.

"Okay, one, I did not have a hand in this. I mean how could have I had a hand in this? I was _sleeping _for the love of anything that's rational. And two, you were supposed to _see _ me sleeping like a passed out troll and get on with your life. _I_ was the one that was supposed to and did look like an absolute idiot." explained James in a frenzy. He didn't want his streak of having a civil conversation with Lily to die out before even completing twenty four hours.

"So you don't remember anything?" asked Lily, he eyes narrowing suspiciously.

"Remember _what? _I. Was. Asleep." replied James, enunciating every word with actions.

"Just that you sleep with your mouth open." said Lily, as he folded her arms and leaned back on the wall, smirking, all signs of anger gone.

"I absolutely do not sleep with my mouth open."

"You absolutely do, like an old man."

"I don't!" whined James.

"Wonder what the rest of the school has to say about that."

"You will not." said James, although for once he was enjoying Lily's smile in his presence.

"We'll see." Lily replied in a business-like tone.

Just then the first year entered the common room, prodding James in his back.

"Took you long enough," said James, as he turned around to look at the boy, "what's your name?" he asked.

"Rodney." he replied, curiously eyeing Lily.

James turned to look at Lily to say goodbye, but found her gazing at Rodney, her face white.

"You okay Evans?" asked James.

"Um, you know what, I need some fresh air, do you mind if I join you guys at the pitch?" she asked, her eyes darting from James to Rodney quickly.

"Not at all. Come on." replied James, besides himself with joy, all worries about Lily exposing him to the school gone.

The three of them walked down to the quidditch pitch in silence, with James asking Rodney about how he was enjoying Hogwarts. James occasionally glanced towards Lily, not believing she was actually accompanying him to the quidditch pitch.

"Right, I'll go get one of the school brooms. I'll fly on it, Rodney you take mine." said James. Just as he was about to hand Rodney his own broom, he pulled it back to himself and said, "Not one scratch, clear?" Rodney nodded in response, his eager hands itching to touch James' broom. After James was satisfied that Rodney got the message, he handed him the broom and went to the locker room to get himself a broom. He looked at the horrible collection of brooms kept in the store room and cursed his luck. _Good luck impressing Evans with that. _

He walked back to the pitch to see Lily hunched over to the height of the boy and talking to him hurriedly. When she heard James walking across the pitch, she straightened up.

"Giving him tips to be a beater, Evans?" asked James, approaching the two.

"If I were, you'd be down on the floor." quipped Lily, as she sat down on the stands and opened a book.

"Well, we should get going." said James, as he kicked his broomstick and flew right up. Rodney mimicked the action and flew up and away from James, giving a yelp of awe. James looked at him, manoeuvring his way through the hoops and realised the kid was a natural flyer.

After about an hour after flying around and showing Rodney techniques James called it a day. James went on to keep the school broomstick back in it's shed while Rodney went to Lily in the stands. When James came back he saw Rodney talking animatedly with Lily, explaining to her the moves and techniques.

"Let's get going then, don't wanna miss dinner." said James. James shoved Rodney to his other side so the former could walk beside Lily.

"Any news of Frank?" asked Lily, not looking at James.

"He's conscious now. Might be able to come to school too." replied James.

"Oh that's good. Finally _some _good news." said Lily as she breathed a sigh of relief.

"Who's Frank?" Rodney asked from his side, almost jogging, trying to keep up. James slowed down his pace a bit for Rodney to relax.

"He's a seventh year, also the Head Boy. He was hospitalised this summer." Lily explained calmly.

"Why?" he asked. Lily hesitated. James sensing her hesitation answered instead.

"He was cursed."

"But why?" asked the boy, a look of terror on his face. James looked at him and crouched down to his height.

"Because his dad died fighting the bad guys and he got caught in the crossfire." said James, gauging the boy's face for any reactions.

"Th-the bad guys like the de-death eaters?" stammered Rodney.

"Yes them. How do you know about them?" James asked.

"My dad was speaking to my mum, and I listened to them fighting about it. I-I didn't mean to eavesdrop, I was just worried about them, but they won't tell me what's wrong. They say I'm too young."

"It's okay to be worried about your parents, even if they think you're too young for that," James smiled at the boy in front of him, "you really should take care of them no matter your age. You will, won't you?"

"Yeah." replied Rodney, with a shy smile. James got up and saw Lily looking at him, possibly lost in her own thoughts. He waved his hands in front of her and she snapped out of her thoughts.

"Yeah, let's go." she said, quietly.

Together they walked towards the castle, with Rodney's mind full of questions about death eaters and the head boy. James' head was a myriad of emotions. Listening to Rodney had reminded him of himself, his parents and how they were getting old, how helpless he felt when it came to lending them a hand in this fight. As a slight wind blew, James caught a whiff of Lily's lavender perfume. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath trying to get in as much of her scent as possible. He was immediately transported back to that night when Lily had cried her eyes out while he had comforted her. It was the first time she had been that close to him and he had loved the smell of lavender since then(before that he had thought it was too strong, but now he just describes it as heady). He looked down to see her lost in her thoughts. He'd give anything to just be able to put his arm around her shoulders and tell her to stop worrying. He looked away as they entered the castle. Rodney ran straight into the Great Hall, and James saw him meet up with his friends and just bursting into the details of his flying sessions.

"Mr. Potter, if you'll follow me to my office please, I've some matters to discuss with you and Ms. Meadows." James heard Professor McGonagall's voice and tore his eyes away from Rodney to see her climbing down the stairs of the Entrance Hall, Dorcas Meadows trailing behind her. Dorcas gave James a weak smile. James returned it. McGonagall was finally going to choose a captain. James was nervous but he didn't want to show it, not in front of Lily.

"Yes, professor." he replied. As he turned around to walk with the head of his house, he felt a hand on his arm.

"It'll be okay, Potter. All the best." said Lily with a smile, but before James could reply, she was already entering the Great Hall. _Maybe it won't be as bad, _he thought.


	12. Cakes and Captaincy

"Potter wait up."

James knew that voice very well and he'd give anything to turn around and listen had he not been feeling so claustrophobic in the Great Hall with everyone congratulating Dorcas on her new captaincy. He didn't stop walking, thinking Lily would never be bothered enough to come after him. He turned around the corner and took the long way to the Gryffindor tower thinking about just how much the decision of McGonagall had affected him. Although no one at the table had known that he too had been considered for the position, he felt as if everyone after congratulating Dorcas was looking at him with pity. He was obviously being delusional. But he felt suffocated sitting there with Sirius and Remus talking about the upcoming match against Slytherin and faint sounds of congratulations coming from Dorcas' end of the table. He had barely touched his food and had excused himself to go to bed. Now he was just wandering around aimlessly, not wanting to go back to the tower knowing that even looking at his house colours would remind him that he's not captain. He'd been hoping to be captain for so long, had come up with so many plays, had helped in tryouts every year and had trained every new member apart from his normal practice. He remembered Lily, only an hour before she had smiled at him and told him it'll be alright. _Merlin, why am I being so sappy about this?!_ James thought as he ran into someone.

"Seriously Potter, I planned on running into you, but stop taking things literally, will you?" said Lily, as she rubbed her head where James' shoulder had hit her.

"I'm sorry, are you okay?" asked James, and then it hit him, "what do you mean you'd been planning on running into me?"

"I mean just that. To run into you, so we could talk." she explained.

"How did you even get here so fast?" James asked, trying to stall the conversation, but also curious.

"You really don't think only you and your band of monkeys know about the shortcuts of the castle?" she asked, eyeing him curiously.

"I did actually, though I stand corrected." he said.

"I came to talk to you."

"About what?"

"About how your crush on Dumbledore is becoming more and more evident with every passing day and how you need to address this situation before it gets out of hand." replied Lily, face as straight as ever.

James made a face at her and asked, "Why are you being so nice to me?". He narrowed his eyes suspiciously at her. He was now enjoying her exasperation with him. And while he still didn't want to talk about the quidditch situation, Lily's presence put his mind at ease.

"I need some help with the transfiguration homework." Lily replied, causing James to guffaw at her.

"It's as if everyone I know is turning so selfish." exclaimed James, his eyes wide.

Lily smacked James right on his arm and said, "You really should talk about it Potter. If you don't want to talk about it with me, talk to your friends. But don't just keep it rotting inside." Lily said and made to move. James had half a mind to let her go because he really didn't want Lily to know that he was a sappy cry baby, but the other half called out her name, because he'd be damned if he let an opportunity to be listened to by the famous Lily Evans, whose kindness nearly everyone had personally experienced, save for James.

"Evans, wait," he called, and Lily turned around, "I guess talking can't be too bad, eh?" he said, smiling sheepishly.

"No, it can't." Lily said, kindly. James patted himself on the back mentally, for once taking the right decision. No matter how stressed he was, he could never turn that smile down. He'd grown up seeing Lily, smiling kindly at the kids who'd have lost their way to class and guiding them to the right directions. James had once pretended to have lost his way to the hospital wing and had asked Lily for the direction. She hadn't been too enthusiastic about showing him the way, but had led him to the hospital wing nonetheless.

James and Lily walked over to a huge window, wordlessly, and sat down facing each other.

"If it's worth anything, I think you'd have made an excellent captain." Lily said.

"It's worth everything." said James, his hand shooting up to mess his hair. An awkward silence engulfed them.

"So.." started Lily.

"So?" James looked down at her.

"Why the long face about all this?"

"I don't have a long face about anything."

"Oh please Potter, at least respect the fact that we've already established there is a problem about Dorcas being the captain and not you."

"Okay, first, there isn't a 'problem' about Dorcas." James defended.

"So what is it?"

"Huh?"

"What is it? If it's not a problem, then what is it?"

"Er.. i don't know. It's nothing I guess."

"Well it's something. I haven't seen you moping around like this since that time McGonagall refused to let you be in the same detention as Black. And that was in our third year."

"Let me tell you, nothing tops that. The thought of Sirius alone in Filch's office just.." James let his words hang in the air. He watched Lily out of the corner of his eyes, trying his best to put on a sordid expression.

"Because Filch might have overworked Sirius?" asked Lily, her voice thick with uncertainty.

"What? No! Because of all the fun I missed out on by not being in Filch's office." exclaimed James as he looked at Lily's gobsmacked face.

"I haven't even been talking to you for a full five minutes and I already feel like an idiot."

"Oh come on, don't feel like an idiot. Not on my account." laughed James and to his surprise, so did Lily.

"I feel so much better now." chuckled James as they calmed down a bit.

"The secret ingredient is to make Lily Evans feel like an idiot." said Lily as she put her hands on her cheeks, "and why weren't you feeling better before?"

"You're not letting it go are you?"

"Feeling like an idiot is one thing, feeling like an idiot just to be sidetracked from what I was originally after, is another. So why weren't you feeling better before?"

"It's nothing, it'll pass."

"If it'll pass, why not share it?"

"I thought I had seen all the crazy you carried in that mind of yours."

"I like to hand out free samples before I let people see the real deal."

"You sure handed out a lot of free samples to me. Were you pursuing me as a potential client or something?" smirked James.

"I was just sizing up my competition." quipped Lily. James threw back his head and laughed. He was almost worried that he had crossed a line with Lily, but she lived to surprise him. He calmed down and looked at Lily. Her fingers were neatly pleating the hem of her skirt. Her nervous habit. James wondered how Lily could be the one nervous here. Was he making her nervous?

"I just wanted the captaincy." James blurted out, as he realised Lily's pleating was getting a bit vigorous and kept pushing the hem of her skirt above her knees the more she pleated them. She let go her skirt and James let out a sigh of relief.

"And McGonagall thought Dorcas was better?"

"She thought we were both equally deserving."

"So who made the final call?"

"I told her to consider Dorcas as she had more experience and as I still had a year to go for the captaincy but for her it's the last chance."

"Very Byronic of you." commented Lily.

"What does that mean?"

"Oh nothing. So you're upset that you stepped down as Dorcas' opposition or that McGonagall actually took you for your word the one time she shouldn't have?"

"Neither. I'm just .. upset."

"Because you lost the captaincy?"

"Yes and yes I know it's selfish."

"How is it selfish?"

"I don't know, I gave it up and now I'm just roaming around, moping, having you listen to just how upset I am, when I willingly gave it up. It makes Dorcas look bad in front of you."

"Okay your logic is so off. One, it doesn't make Dorcas sound bad. She deserves this captaincy. Two, it doesn't make you sound selfish. Just because you let someone have the last piece of a cake because you thought they deserved it, doesn't make the other person bad for accepting it and just because you gave up that piece of cake willingly doesn't mean you aren't allowed to mope for it. I mean, yes I'd be happy to give my cake to someone who wanted it more than me, but I'll sit up all night thinking about that cake. It's okay to mope around and be sad for what you wanted. There's nothing wrong with that." finished Lily, longing etched on her face.

"Do you want a cake, Evans?" asked James as he studied Lily's expression which was quickly turning into a dreamy one.

"Don't blame me, all that cake talk made me hungry."

"You do realise you just compared quidditch captaincy with cake."

"Okay nothing comes closer to being compared with your captaincy than cake." defended Lily.

"I agree. Also it's not my captaincy."

"It will be next year." said Lily, with her eyebrows raised and a wide expectant smile on her face.

"Hey don't jinx it by saying it."

"You really are doing good in your muggle studies aren't you?" asked Lily, an odd expression of surprise on her face.

"I still don't understand the logic behind superstitions."

"That's why they are superstitions and not traditions that actually have some reason to back them."

"Oi prongs. Where have you been-" James broke his gaze away from Lily to look at Sirius with Remus and Peter heading towards where James and Lily sat.

"-oh" said Sirius as he looked at Lily sitting next to James.

"Um, that's okay, I was leaving anyway." mumbled Lily as she got up and adjusted her skirt.

"Good night, Potter." said Lily without looking towards James, but he couldn't care less. He sat with his legs sprawled out in front of him and looked ahead. His previous desire to mope around was dying away as he watched Lily taking her firm and determined steps towards the Gryffindor tower, her head high and the light bouncing off her hair as she moved.

* * *

**A/N: that was one long hiatus, and i can't say I'll be updating regularly but i'll try. I'm very sorry for the abrupt break, but all the uncertainty surrounding this covid situation has my mind rotting. I'm so very sorry for this delay (i don't think 'delay' qualifies as an appropriate word for the long break that I took). Anyway thanks for reading guys. Love ya. stay safe please. **


End file.
